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THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  SPIRITUALISM 


THE  SADLER  CLASSICS 


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A.  C.  McCLURG  &  CO. 

CHICAGO 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT 
SPIRITUALISM 


BY 


WILLIAM  S.  SADLER,  M.  D.,  F.  A.  C.  S. 


Fellow  of  the  American  College  of  Surgeons;  Senior  Attending  Surgeon  to  Columbus 
Hospital;  Formerly  Professor  at  the  Post  Graduate  Medical  School  of 
Chicago;  Director  the  Chicago  Institute  of  Research  and 
Diagnosis;  Fellow  of  the  American  Medical  Association; 

Member  of  the  Chicago  Medical  Society, 
the  Illinois  State  Medical  Society, 

•  the  American  Public  Health 
Association,  etc.,  etc. 


CHICAGO 

A.  C.  McCLURG  &  CO 

1923 


Copyright 

A.  C.  McClurg  &  Co. 
1923 


Published  November,  1923 


Copyrighted  in  Great  Britain 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


PREFACE 


MORE  than  twenty-five  years  ago,  I  began  the 
study  of  spiritualism,  and  down  through  the  years 
these  investigations  have  been  continued  along  many 
different  lines.  From  time  to  time,  I  have  had  under 
my  professional  care  clairvoyants,  mediums,  trance 
talkers,  automatic  writers,  and  other  sorts  of  so-called 
psychics  and  sensitives.  As  the  result  of  years  of 
observation  and  treatment  of  these  peculiar  individuals, 
as  well  as  by  attendance  upon  the  seances  of  many 
mediums  in  this  country  and  in  Great  Britain,  I  came, 
years  ago,  to  form  certain  definite  opinions  regarding 
the  phenomena  of  spiritualism,  and  accordingly,  about 
a  dozen  years  ago,  began  to  give  public  addresses 
touching  upon  the  various  phases  of  the  phenomena 
and  philosophy  of  spiritualism. 

Owing  to  the  great  interest  in  this  subject  following 
the  World  War,  my  publishers,  A.  C.  McClurg  &  Co., 
have  asked  me,  in  addition  to  my  larger  work  on 
1 Spiritualism ,  to  revise  and  prepare  the  manuscript  of 
my  lecture  on  spiritualism  for  a  briefer  and  possibly 
more  popular  presentation  of  the  subject  for  the  aver¬ 
age  reader. 

Those  wishing  to  pursue  this  subject  further,  are 
referred  to  the  larger  work  previously  mentioned,  in 
which  will  be  found  a  far  more  complete  and  full 
presentation  of  both  the  physical  phenomena  and  the 
philosophical  or  psychologic  aspects  of  the  psychic 
manifestations  of  modern  spiritualism. 

William  S.  Sadler. 
533  Diversey  Parkway,  Chicago. 

September ,  1923 . 

'To  be  issued  in  1924. 


V 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  Why  Is  Spiritualism? .  1 

II  Preparing  the  Public  Mind .  22 

III  The  Modern  Spiritualistic  Movement .  65 

IV  Physical  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism .  83 

V  The  Psychic  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism. . . .  121 

VI  The  Moral  and  Ethical  Aspects  of  Spiritual¬ 
ism .  167 

VII  The  Conclusion  of  the  Whole  Matter .  193 


VII 


TheTruthAboutSpiritualism 


CHAPTER  1 

WHY  IS  SPIRITUALISM 

I  HAVE  written  this  to  tell  about  my  experience  with 
spiritualism,  an  experience  which  covers  a  quarter 
of  a  century;  and  at  the  very  beginning  it  behooves  us 
to  pause  and  seek  for  an  answer  to  the  question  as  to 
why  many  people  are  so  intensely  interested  in  spiritual¬ 
ism.  Why  are  we  so  captivated  with  the  theories  and 
claims  respecting  the  ability  of  the  dead  to  return  to 
this  world  and  communicate  with  the  living?  In  a 
word,  why  is  spiritualism? 

In  explanation  of  the  popular  interest  in  modern 
spiritualism,  there  are  a  number  of  different  reasons: 

1.  IMMORTALITY - A  UNIVERSAL  HOPE 

The  belief  in  immortality,  the  desire  to  live  again, 
is  a  well-nigh  universal  instinct  or  longing  of  mankind. 
It  seems  to  be  inherent  in  the  majority  of  the  human 
species.  This  hope  for  life  beyond  the  grave  seems  to 
be  a  part  of  the  average  man’s  mental  equipment. 

The  primitive  savage,  as  well  as  the  cultured  men 
and  women  of  a  higher  civilization,  all  entertain,  in 
varying  degrees,  this  hope  of  survival  after  death,  this 


2 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


natural  longing  for  immortality.  And  so  it  seems  that, 
except  for  those  cases  of  the  intellectual  stoic,  those 
educated  and  disciplined  minds  who  have  so  exten¬ 
sively  trained  themselves  in  artificial  channels  of 
thought  —  I  say,  except  for  these  products  of  modern 
education,  all  mankind  intensely  desires  to  live  again. 

Just  as  self-preservation  seems  to  be  the  first  law 
of  Nature,  the  longing  for  immortality  seems  to  be  the 
first  hope  of  the  unfolding  and  expanding  intelligence 
of  the  human  species.  To  preserve  our  lives  is  the  con¬ 
summate  desire  of  today,  but  to  survive  after  death  is 
the  supreme  hope  for  the  future. 

All  primitive  peoples  believe  in  and  worship  a  deity 
of  some  sort.  No  matter  what  may  be  the  philosophic 
nature  of  their  beliefs  in  immortality,  all  the  tribes 
and  races  of  mankind  indulge  their  faith  in  a  Happy 
Hunting  Ground,  in  Paradise  and  Purgatory,  so  that 
in  some  form  or  other  they  have  acquired  a  belief  in 
an  existence  of  some  sort  in  the  Great  Beyond  on  the 
other  side  of  the  grave. 

In  this  connection  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  we 
do  not  find  any  great  and  dominant  instinct,  any  uni¬ 
versal  appetite  or  longing,  hunger  or  thirst,  which  has 
become  a  part  of  human  life,  without  at  the  same  time 
discovering  that  means  have  been  provided  for  the 
satisfaction  of  these  natural  longings  and  biologic 
instincts.  We  find  at  hand  the  means  to  satisfy  our 
physical,  social,  and  sex  cravings,  those  longings  which 


Why  Is  Spiritualism 


3 


have  become  a  part  of  men’s  lives;  and  so,  no  matter 
what  may  be  the  real  origin  of  our  spiritual  instinct 
and  the  desire  to  survive  death  —  I  say,  no  matter 
what  may  be  the  real  beginning  of  these  beliefs  in  a 
future  existence,  it  would  seem  but  philosophic  con¬ 
sistency  to  believe  that  the  all-wise  spiritual  forces  of 
the  universe  must,  in  all  consistency,  have  made  some 
adequate  provision  for  the  satisfaction  of  these  spiritual 
longings  which  are  so  deeply  implanted  in  the  hearts  of 
mankind. 

The  Belief  in  Spirits.  Let  me  make  it  clear,  at  the 
very  beginning  of  this  book,  that  I  am  not  a  materialist, 
I  am  not  a  fatalist,  as  these  terms  are  commonly  under¬ 
stood.  I  must  freely  admit  my  belief  in  the  existence  of 
invisible  and  spiritual  forces,  though  I  realize  that  the 
frontiers  of  science  are  being  constantly  advanced 
—  that  many  things  which  we  once  regarded  as  spiritual 
we  now  regard  as  natural.  Nevertheless,  I  believe  in 
the  existence  of  spirits,  but  that  has  nothing  directly  to 
do  writh  the  claims  of  spiritualism  regarding  the  return 
of  the  dead  to  our  world,  to  communicate  with  the 
living.  Just  because  I  admit  the  fact  that  I  am  not  a 
materialist,  does  not  in  any  sense  make  me  a  spiritu¬ 
alist,  as  regards  these  matters  pertaining  to  the  return 
of  discarnate  spirits  to  communicate  with  the  living. 
In  all  my  professional  career  I  have  never  witnessed 
what  might  be  called  a  Godless  deathbed  scene.  I  well 
remember  the  Irishman  who  proposed  to  die  cursing 


4  The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 

God,  but  when,  in  the  small  hours  of  the  morning  he 
was  told  that  he  would  probably  never  live  to  see  the 
sun  rise  again,  and  when  this  verdict  was  confirmed  by 
two  consulting  physicians,  then  he  ordered  us  all  from 
the  room  and  directed  his  nurse  to  send  for  the  priest. 

In  our  every  thought  we  figure  out  that  this  life,  if 
that  is  all  there  is  to  it,  is  not  worth  while  —  it  is  too 
tragic.  The  struggle  is  too  short  and  bitter,  the  goal  is 
too  disappointing.  That  such  a  marvelously  wrought 
mechanism  as  the  physical  man,  and  such  an  intricate 
and  surpassingly  wonderful  thing  as  the  human  mind 

—  to  say  nothing  of  man’s  higher  moral  and  spiritual 
nature  —  should  all  be  created  and  assigned  just  to 
traverse  this  “vale  of  tears”  for  “three  score  years  and 
ten,”  and  then  that  it  should  all  end  —  terminate  in  a 
never-ending  sleep  —  I  say,  it  seems  to  the  average 
individual  that  a  Mind,  Power,  or  Force  that  was  able 
to  qualify  as  the  architect  and  builder  of  the  universe 

—  even  the  little  that  we  know  of  it  —  that  the  Intel¬ 
ligent  Energy  which  functions  as  the  Supreme  Up¬ 
holder  and  Director  of  the  world  in  which  we  live 
and  its  associated  planets;  it  seems  only  reasonable  to 
believe  that  such  a  Power  would  be  too  all-wise  to  be 
guilty  of  such  uneconomical  conduct,  such  wasteful 
extravagance,  and  such  short-sighted  planning,  as  would 
be  the  case  if  death  were  the  goal  of  life  —  if  death 
were  but  the  entrance  into  one  long,  black,  impene¬ 
trable  and  never-ending  state  of  unconsciousness. 


Why  Is  Spiritualism 


5 


“If  a  man  die,  shall  he  live  again?”  is  a  question  as 
old  as  Job.  Great  minds  in  all  the  past  have  tugged 
away  to  demonstrate  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 
From  the  days  when  the  Egyptian  priests  consulted 
the  oracles  of  Isis,  and  the  Greeks  sought  truth  from 
Eleusis,  there  has  been  a  belief  in  the  evocation  of 
the  spirits  of  the  dead. 

2.  SPIRITUALISM  LIKE  FALLING  IN  LOVE 

The  belief  in  life  after  death  seems  to  be  just  about 
as  natural  to  human  beings  as  the  tendency  to  “fall  in 
love,”  and  I  find  it  is  just  about  as  hard  to  reason  with 
people  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other,  simply  because 
in  both  cases  we  are  dealing  with  a  deep-seated  and 
fundamental  human  emotion.  I  find  it  just  about  as 
profitable  to  argue  with  a  real  spiritualist  as  I  do  to 
argue  with  a  young  couple  who  are  in  love  and  deter¬ 
mined  to  get  married.  When  a  young  couple  tell  me 
they  are  going  to  pray  over  their  love  affair,  I  always 
tell  them  to  save  their  time  and  go  ahead,  because  I 
have  found  that  when  a  couple  of  infatuated  youths 
pray  about  their  love  affairs,  the  Lord  always  answers 
yes.  And  so  I  find  it  with  the  spiritualist,  once  a 
believer  always  a  believer ;  no  matter  what  happens,  they 
excuse  the  blunders  of  their  favorite  medium  and  go 
on  believing. 

The  spiritualists  develop  the  same  infatuation  for 
their  belief  in  the  return  of  the  dead  that  a  young 


6 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


man  develops  for  his  sweetheart,  and  both  the  young 
lover  and  the  devotee  of  spiritism,  fired  by  these  psychic 
phantasies  born  of  their  unconscious  wishes,  become 
blindly  devoted  to  the  object  of  their  affection  and  are 
quite  oblivious  to  all  reasoning  on  the  one  hand  and 
inconsistencies  of  philosophy  on  the  other. 

In  a  word,  one  of  the  explanations  of  our  devotion 
to  modern  spiritualism  is  what  the  psychologists  call 
“the  will  to  believe.”  Even  primitive,  prehistoric  men 
wrere  more  or  less  religious,  and  indulged  in  the  hope 
for  immortality,  as  we  discover  when  we  dig  up  their 
skeletons  and  note  that  many  of  them  practiced  some 
sort  of  burial  ceremonial,  indicative  of  their  belief  in  a 
future  existence. 

The  hope  of  surviving  death  is  the  desire  of  the  ages, 
and  so  there  has  grown  up  in  mankind  a  sort  of  instinc¬ 
tive  will  to  believe  this  thing. 

The  instinct  to  live  is  so  intense,  is  so  biologic  and 
innate,  that  it  extends  over  and  beyond  the  span  of 
our  natural  life  on  earth,  and  seeks  to  lay  hold  of 
another  life  beyond  —  seeks  to  merge  life  on  this  earth 
with  that  of  a  future  existence.  And  I  have  found  this 
desire  existing  in  varying  form  in  all  classes  of  my 
patients,  from  the  humblest  and  most  ignorant  patient 
found  in  the  dispensary  to  the  most  highly  educated 
and  intellectual  men  and  women  of  private  practice. 

We  must  not  forget,  even  in  the  case  of  our  modern 
civilized  men,  that  human  beings  are  controlled  by 


Why  Is  Spiritualism 


7 


their  hearts  and  not  by  their  heads.  We  are  emotional 
creatures,  and  there  is  no  greater  emotion  in  human 
experience  than  the  desire  to  live  again. 

3.  THE  REACTION  TO  MATERIALISM 

We  cannot  close  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  during 
the  past  fifty  years  materialistic  tendencies  have  made 
great  progress  in  the  minds  of  the  more  intelligent  and 
thinking  elements  of  society.  And  in  view  of  this  it  is 
not  strange  that  the  World  War  should  have  pre¬ 
cipitated  the  present  day  reaction  of  spiritualism.  The 
channels  of  religious  consolation  patronized  by  the  last 
generation  have  been  more  or  less  blocked  to  the 
thirsty  souls  of  today.  This  change  in  the  spiritual 
complexion  of  the  people  is  probably  due  to  three  dis¬ 
tinct  causes: 

a.  A  general  breakdown  in  the  religious  tendencies 
and  authority  of  former  generations. 

b.  The  spread  of  socialism  and  kindred  teachings 
which  are  devoid  of  a  spiritual  background  and  setting; 
and 

c.  The  rapid  spread  of  materialistic  tendencies,  due 
to  the  enormous  development  of  the  physical  sciences. 

Science  starts  out  with  the  theory  that  the  mind 
has  nothing  in  it  except  that  which  enters  through  the 
physical  senses;  but  sooner  or  later  even  the  scientist 
himself  is  brought  face  to  face  with  intellectual  phe¬ 
nomena  which  it  is  difficult  to  explain  on  the  theory 


8 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


that  thinking  can  only  have  its  origin  in  sensory  feel¬ 
ing.  There  is  an  uncanny  creative  element  in  the 
human  mind;  there  is  a  phantasy  of  imagination  that 
tends  to  assert  itself  over  and  above  that  residue  of 
mind  and  memory  which  we  conceive  as  having  had 
its  origin  in  the  physical,  impressions  of  the  special 
senses.  And  so  even  the  physical  scientists  and  the 
psychologists  tend  sooner  or  later  to  gravitate  to  that 
place  where  they  are  willing  to  admit  the  possibility, 
if  not  the  probability,  of  the  existence  of  spiritual 
forces  in  connection  and  contact  with  the  human  mind. 
And  thus,  without  suitable  principles  for  guidance,  the 
way  is  wide  open  for  the  intrusion  of  some  phase  of 
spiritualism. 

Recurring  Waves  of  Spiritism .  As  already  inti¬ 
mated  a  perusal  of  the  philosophic  tendencies  of  man¬ 
kind  serves  to  show  that  the  race  tends  to  oscillate, 
in  generation  cycles,  from  one  extreme  to  the  other  in 
its  philosophic  beliefs.  A  period  of  superstition  and 
credulity  is  usually  followed  by  a  period  of  material¬ 
istic  reaction.  The  spiritism  and  mysticism  of  the 
dark  ages  culminated  in  the  rank  infidelity  and 
materialism  of  the  French  Revolution.  On  the  other 
hand  the  materialistic  tendencies  of  the  latter  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  with  the  great  expansion  and 
development  of  the  physical  sciences  and  the  increasing 
tendency  of  science  to  lean  toward  materialism  and 
fatalism,  led  to  an  inevitable  outbreak  of  mystic 


Why  Is  Spiritualism 


9 


cultism  at  the  dawn  of  the  twentieth  century,  as  out¬ 
lined  in  the  teachings  of  Christian  Science,  and  still 
further  and  more  recently  in  the  unprecedented  tenden¬ 
cies  and  leanings  toward  spiritualism  and  other  efforts 
to  communicate  with  the  dead  and  otherwise  to  get 
in  touch  with  the  invisible  world  beyond  the  grave. 

I  believe  that  our  present  dilemma,  the  spiritualistic 
maze  into  which  so  many  earnest  souls  are  creeping, 
has  been  brought  about  by  a  failure  to  recognize  the 
proper  provinces  of  science  and  religion.  Each  has  its 
own  sphere,  and  the  failure  of  the  one  to  recognize  the 
domain  and  function  of  the  other,  has  done  much  to 
bring  confusion  to  the  popular  mind,  and  to  twist  and 
distort  the  philosophy  of  common  sense  in  the  souls 
of  the  common  people. 

Just  about  the  time  the  scientists  succeed  in  con¬ 
vincing  the  people  that  there  is  no  spirit,  that  all  is 
material;  the  average  individual  having  fed  on  these 
dry  husks  of  materialism  and  finding  an  ever-present 
spiritual  thirst  which  is  not  quenched  by  such  scien¬ 
tific  dogma,  soon  accumulates  such  a  desire  for  com¬ 
fort,  as  the  result  of  the  sorrows  of  living,  that  when 
he  contemplates  the  future  and  feels  that  when  he  dies 
he  is  going  to  be  but  like  the  cats  and  dogs  and  beasts 
of  the  earth,  to  rot  in  the  ground  and  be  no  more;  in  a 
time  of  unusual  stress  or  strain,  during  a  season  of 
great  sorrow  or  other  severe  disappointment  —  these 
mentally  distraught  and  spiritually  famished  individ- 


10 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


uals  settle  their  philosophic  difficulties  by  suddenly 
abandoning  the  ship  of  scientific  materialism,  and  they 
startle  us  by  taking  one  grand  plunge  into  the  sophistries 
and  delusions  of  Christian  Science,  Spiritualism,  or 
some  other  mystic,  metaphysical  cult. 

4.  LOOKING  BEYOND  THE  GRAVE 

It  is  difficult  for  us  to  give  up  our  loved  ones.  We 
become  attached  to  our  fellow  mortals,  and  we  dislike 
forever  to  part  company  with  our  earthly  companions. 
The  spiritualists  are  endeavoring  to  live  over  again  the 
life-companionship  of  their  departed  friends  and  loved 
ones.  In  their  phantasies  and  dreams  they  see  them 
again  about  the  house,  and  with  them  again  they 
traverse  the  old  familiar  paths  and  roads,  while  in 
imagination  they  hear  their  voices,  and  feel  the  hand¬ 
clasp  and  embrace  of  those  long  since  departed.  They 
resurrect  the  love  letters  of  former  days  and  read  and 
re-read  them.  After  our  loved  ones  leave  us,  we,  in 
our  own  concept  of  their  characteristics,  endow  them 
with  many  beautiful  things  which  they  but  faintly 
possessed  when  on  earth,  and  we  allow  to  fade  out  of 
our  memories  those  disagreeable  things  we  were  wont 
to  recognize  as  a  part  of  their  personality  when  they 
were  with  us. 

After  our  friends  have  left  us,  we  collect  their  photo¬ 
graphs,  place  them  on  our  dressers  and  hang  them  on 
pur  walls,  and  thus  we  seek  to  keep  the  memory  of 


Why  Is  Spiritualism 


11 


these  dear  ones  alive  in  our  minds.  When  we  are  thus 
able  to  visualize  the  departed,  it  does  not  seem  strange 
that  the  human  mind  with  its  creative  imagination, 
should  dare  to  go  one  step  further,  and  seek  actually 
to  hear  the  voices  —  actually  to  communicate  with 
the  supposed  spirits  of  those  who  have  left  us. 

There  is  a  persistent  determination,  on  the  part  of 
most  people,  to  cling  to  their  dead  —  they  simply  will 
not  let  them  go.  This  state  of  mind  is  reflected  in  the 
actual  behavior  of  many  persons  who  throw  their  arms 
about  the  departed  at  the  last  funeral  rites  with  violent 
weeping,  clinging  to  their  lifeless  forms  to  the  very  last 
moment.  It  is  not  strange,  then,  that  after  the  form  of 
clay  has  been  laid  away  in  the  cemetery,  intelligent 
beings  begin  to  ask,  concerning  their  deceased  loved 
ones:  “Where  are  they?  What  are  they  doing?  Can 
they  come  back?  Do  they  come  back  to  our  world? 
Are  they  cognizant  of  what  we  are  doing?  Are  they 
conscious  of  our  sorrow  for  them?  Do  they  know  how 
much  we  miss  them?” 

It  is  only  natural  that  a  curious  and  speculative 
human  brain  should  indulge  such  thoughts.  And  as 
the  world  of  today  asks  itself  these  questions  concern¬ 
ing  the  dead  and  departed,  the  answer  seems  to  be 
coming  back  in  a  flood  of  spiritistic  literature  and  a 
deluge  of  spiritualistic  performances. 

In  every  place,  and  all  the  time,  almost  everybody  is 
today  discussing  some  phase  of  the  occult  —  something 


12 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


pertaining  more  or  less  to  spiritualism.  If  it  is  not  our 
favorite  medium  we  attend  upon,  then  it  is  the  ouija 
board  that  we  experiment  with.  If  it  is  not  clairvoy- 
ancy  that  we  dabble  with,  then  it  is  through  the  ave¬ 
nue  of  psychology  that  we  seek  to  attain  to  telepathic 
communication  between  the  minds  of  the  living. 

5.  COMMUNICATING  WITH  THE  DEAD 

Unquestionably,  the  vast  majority  of  the  common 
people  indulge  the  desire  or  curiosity  for  communicat¬ 
ing  with  the  dead.  The  average  person,  having  passed 
through  some  sorrowful  bereavement,  craves  for  satis¬ 
fying  assurance  that  his  loved  ones  have  only  passed  on 
to  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  a  better  world.  The  bereaved 
soul  is  tortured  by  anxiety  and  uncertainty,  and  craves 
those  things  which  will  demonstrate  and  prove  that 
his  loved  ones  survive  death  —  that  they  enjoy  con¬ 
sciousness  beyond  the  vale. 

How  eager  is  the  bereaved  human  to  catch  a  glimpse 
—  to  discern  even  the  faintest  glimmer  —  of  the  light 
that  would  testify  to  life  beyond  the  tomb.  This  is  not 
strange,  since  we  recognize  the  almost  universal  belief 
in  a  future  life.  Why  should  not  these  of  us  who  re¬ 
main  behind  desire  to  know  where  our  loved  ones  are, 
what  they  are  doing,  whether  they  are  in  this  world  or 
another  world?  And  the  answer  to  these  questions  can 
only  be  found  in  the  guidebooks  of  the  revealed  reli¬ 
gions  or  in  the  messages  of  the  seance  room. 


Why  Is  Spiritualism 


13 


Science  today  offers  us  no  proof  of  existence  beyond 
the  grave.  The  answers  to  the  many  questions  which 
swarm  in  our  minds  concerning  our  dead  are  only  to 
be  found  in  revealed  religion,  or  in  some  phase  of  spir¬ 
itualism.  Therefore,  proportionately  as  the  dogma  of 
revealed  religion  weakens  in  its  hold  upon  the  human 
mind,  to  just  the  extent  that  men  and  women  drift 
away  from  their  belief  in  the  theologic  teachings  and 
dogmas  of  their  family  church  connections,  they 
become  - —  if  they  do  not  meanwhile  develop  an  inde¬ 
pendent  philosophy  concerning  such  matters  —  ready 
and  willing  candidates  for  experimenting  with  spirit¬ 
ualism  in  their  effort  to  solve  the  problems  of  an 
unseen  world  and  a  future  life. 

There  are,  then,  three  sources  from  which  we  can 
look  for  an  answer  to  our  desire  to  communicate  with 
the  dead.  They  are: 

a.  Science.  Science  today  is  noncommittal.  It  has 
nothing  to  offer.  To  science  the  dead  are  dead.  Sci¬ 
ence  offers  no  hope  beyond  the  grave.  It  stands  ready 
to  investigate  anything  having  to  do  with  the  material 
universe  and  the  physical  laws  of  nature,  but  today 
science,  as  such,  offers  no  technique  by  which  the  living 
may  communicate  with  the  dead. 

b.  Revealed  religion.  The  revealed  religions  such  as 
Judaism,  Mohammedanism,  and  Christianity,  offer 
little  teaching  that  would  encourage  us  to  believe  that 
surviving  mortals  could  hope  to  communicate  with  the 


14 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


spirits  of  departed  friends  and  relatives.  Buddhism 
certainly  holds  out  no  such  hope,  while  it  is  doubtful 
even  that  the  teaching  of  Confucius,  with  all  its  burden 
of  ancestor  worship  as  believed  by  the  Chinese,  offers 
any  great  assurance  of  the  living  being  able  to  com¬ 
municate  with  the  dead. 

c.  Spiritualism .  Spiritualism  is  the  only  system  of 
religious  belief  or  occult  pretension  which  claims  to  be 
able  to  put  the  living  in  communication  with  the  dead, 
and  therein  is  the  secret  of  its  widespread  diffusion. 
Human  beings  would  like  to  communicate  with  the 
dead.  Science  provides  no  way,  and  revealed  religion 
offers  no  help;  therefore  they  turn  to  the  seance  and 
the  medium;  but  what  foolish  conduct  on  the  part  of 
intelligent  human  beings  to  expect  the  Witch  of  Endor 
to  supply  us  with  those  realities  with  which  to  satisfy 
our  curiosity  and  quench  our  spiritual  thirst  when 
both  religion  and  science  have  failed  to  help  us.  When 
the  scientist  and  the  philosopher  know  not  the  way 
between  the  living  and  the  dead,  how  can  we  expect  to 
be  piloted  through  these  uncertain  realms  by  palmists, 
astrologers,  clairvoyants,  and  mediums? 

6.  THE  WORLD  WAR  —  DEFENSE  REACTIONS 

It  seems  that  we  are  destined  to  have  a  revival  of 
spiritualism  about  once  in  each  generation.  More  cer¬ 
tainly,  we  have  a  recurring  wave  of  spiritualism  follow¬ 
ing  every  great  war.  And  so  today  we  are  experiencing 


Why  Is  Spiritualism 


15 


a  great  wave  of  spiritism,  a  great  movement  in  mass 
psychology,  that  in  many  respects  seems  to  outstrip 
the  popular  psychology  which  characterized  the  folly 
of  the  crusaders,  or  the  fanaticism  of  the  witchcraft 
delusions  of  past  centuries. 

Tens  of  thousands  of  people  —  and  this  is  particu¬ 
larly  true  of  the  revival  of  spiritualism  in  Great  Brit¬ 
ain  —  I  say,  untold  thousands  of  people  have  lost 
sons,  brothers,  husbands,  and  sweethearts  in  the  bloody 
battles  of  the  great  World  War.  And  these  bereaved 
souls  are  simply  human.  They  are  possessed  of  this 
belief  in  a  future  life,  and  as  we  have  already  seen,  it  is 
only  natural  that  they  should  long  to  communicate 
with  their  departed  loved  ones;  and  it  is  just  this  state 
of  affairs  that  has  brought  about  the  present  day  re¬ 
vival  of  interest  in  mediums,  spiritualism,  etc. 

In  other  words,  this  movement  in  mass  psychology, 
as  regards  spiritualism  today,  is  due  to  the  simple  fact 
that  tens  of  thousands  of  individuals  are  indulging  in 
the  practice  of  spiritualism  as  a  sort  of  defense  reaction 
which  they  unconsciously  are  putting  up  to  counteract 
their  sense  of  grief  and  bereavement,  occasioned  by  the 
loss  of  their  loved  ones.  And  let  us,  in  this  connection, 
give  a  little  more  attention  to  this  question  of  defense 
reaction  on  the  part  of  the  individual  as  the  ultimate 
explanation  of  manifestations  of  mass  psychology  on 
the  part  of  the  public. 

The  World  War  shattered  so  much  that  was  tangible 


16 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


and  that  was  believed  to  be  the  last  word  in  substan¬ 
tiality.  It  overturned  governments;  upset  the  balance 
of  trade;  deteriorated  currency;  shattered  ideals  of 
world  unity  and  concord;  wrecked  centuries  old  con¬ 
ventions  of  social  classes;  placed  upon  the  high  seats 
men  and  women  of  daring  and  vision  and  commanding 
ability  who  had  arisen  from  social  levels  that  suppos¬ 
edly  could  contribute  only  bone  and  brawn  to  the 
state;  and  it  swept  millions  of  men  to  death  in  trenches 
and  fields  of  blood  and  fire,  and  other  millions  into  the 
hospitals  whence  they  emerged  maimed  and  battered 
remnants  of  their  former  selves.  There  is  no  estimating 
the  weight  of  such  shocks  as  these.  In  some  way  or 
other,  and  in  all  ways  together,  human  nature  must 
bear  the  strain.  It  is  idle  in  such  circumstances  to 
urge  what  in  some  circles  has  become  a  byword,  that 
conditions  must  be  adjusted  to  the  natures  of  men  — 
not  the  reverse.  Conditions  will  not  be  adjusted  at  once. 

It  is  intolerable  —  all  this  overturning  and  the  sud¬ 
den  snuffing  out  of  young  and  vigorous  friends  and 
kinsmen.  In  such  circumstances  we  turn  our  eyes 
“unto  the  hills  whence  cometh  our  help”;  and  the  men 
and  women  of  warring  countries  are  said  to  have  crowd¬ 
ed  the  churches.  This  was  a  reaction  of  defense  against 
an  unbearable  reality;  a  gesture  of  reaching  out  for  a 
life  in  which  blood  and  fire  and  separation  from  loved 
ones  count  for  nothing  because  they  are  not.  But  many 
deny  its  sufficiency.  To  them  the  church  is  for  dogma 


Why  Is  Spiritualism 


17 


and  convention;  not  for  life  and  for  living.  It  feeds 
them  with  platitudes  and  their  “gorge  rises.”  These 
folk  are  the  overflow  into  the  half  darkened  rooms 
where  the  seances  are  held;  where  the  spirits  walk  and 
rap  and  talk. 

Different  Sorts  of  Defense  Reactions .  In  these  days  we 
hear  a  good  deal  about  defense  reactions.  For  instance, 
they  tell  us  that  our  interest  in  sports  and  our  devotion 
to  games  is  an  unconscious  defense  reaction  on  the  part 
of  the  common  people  against  the  tedious  routine  and 
monotony  of  the  daily  grind  of  our  commonplace  lives. 
The  psychologists  tell  us  that  so  many  people  pursue 
intoxications  of  various  sorts  as  a  defense  reaction 
against  the  dull  and  sordid  conditions  of  their  daily 
life,  against  the  humdrum  existence  and  the  lack  of 
romance  in  our  common  experience.  We  are  told  that 
intoxication,  on  the  one  hand,  and  sports  on  the  other, 
help  us  to  escape  from  a  real  and  uninteresting  exist¬ 
ence  into  a  world  of  stimulating  and  entertaining 
romance. 

We  are  further  taught  that  the  bully  browbeats  his 
companions  because  he  has  an  inherent  sense  of  infe¬ 
riority.  He  is  just  “whistling  to  keep  up  his  courage.” 
The  scientists  further  tell  us  that  a  lot  of  people  take 
up  reforms  in  order  to  escape  temptation.  They  feel 
they  are  weak,  and  they  espouse  a  good  cause  in  an 
effort  to  extricate  themselves  from  danger.  It  cer¬ 
tainly  is  true  that  many  of  the  great  temperance  re- 


18  The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 

formers  of  the  last  generation  had  been  former  victims 
of  alcoholism. 

We  are  further  told  by  the  psychologists  that  much 
of  what  we  call  religion  is  a  defense  reaction — an  effort 
on  our  part  to  escape  a  sense  of  insecurity  that  attends 
this  life,  and  that  in  this  connection  spiritualism  has 
come  in  as  a  sort  of  substitute  for  old-fashioned  re¬ 
ligion;  that  spiritualism  goes  a  step  farther  in  some 
respects  than  religion  used  to,  to  satisfy  our  spiritual 
longings,  in  that  it  not  only  takes  the  place  of  declining 
religious  authority  on  the  one  hand,  but  that  it  serves 
in  some  degree  at  least  as  an  antidote  for  the  undue 
prevalence  of  modern  materialism.  And  so  the  psychol¬ 
ogists  are  wont  to  interpret  this  inner  urge — this 
curiosity  and  attraction  which  leads  to  the  seance 
room  —  as  a  sort  of  defense  reaction  which  so  many 
people  are  unconsciously  indulging  as  the  result  of  the 
loss  of  religious  authority  over  the  masses  by  the  theo- 
logic  dogmas  and  creeds  of  the  present  day. 

And  so  today,  just  as  the  ditch  digger  craves  his 
alcohol,  and  the  grocery  clerk  seeks  his  out-of-door 
sport,  as  the  means  of  obtaining  relief  from  the  tedium 
of  daily  life,  so  in  this  day  of  materialistic  philosophy, 
tens  of  thousands  of  people  are  turning  away  from  de¬ 
cadent  religion  to  seek  consolation  and  confirmation  of 
their  belief  in  a  future  existence  at  the  hands  of  modern 
spiritualism.  The  moment  orthodox  religion  ceases  to 
supply  consolation  as  a  defense  reaction  to  the  un- 


Why  Is  Spiritualism 


19 


certainty  of  life,  then  the  doors  are  open  for  spiritual¬ 
ism  to  come  in  and  supply  this  consolation  which 
religion  has  failed  to  give. 

And  in  this  connection,  it  is  important  to  emphasize 
the  fact  that  we  are  never  critical  or  rational  in  our 
defense  reactions.  Our  defense  reactions  are  largely  un¬ 
conscious,  instinctive,  and  automatic.  We  just  indulge 
them  and  enjoy  them,  we  don’t  stop  to  do  much  rea¬ 
soning  about  them:  And  so,  if  spiritualism  is  a  defense 
reaction  we  can  be  sure  about  it  that  the  man  in  the 
street  will  not  indulge  in  much  logic  about  it.  The 
emotional  woman  will  not  rationalize  much  about  her 
experiences  in  the  seance  room. 

7.  SPIRITUALISM  AN  ANCIENT  PRACTICE 

It  would  seem,  from  some  ancient  accounts,  that  the 
modern  mediums  had  nothing  on  the  necromancers  of 
old.  The  ancient  mediums  were  able  to  produce  prac¬ 
tically  all  the  manifestations  of  the  modern  seance 
room,  such  as  lights,  sounds,  voices,  and  other  physical 
manifestations.  They  likewise  had  wonderful  trance 
talkers  and  psychic  mediums  in  olden  times.  The 
earliest  records  of  spiritualism  are  probably  those  of 
the  performance  of  Egyptian  mediums,  and  the  Bible 
tells  us  something  of  the  experiences  of  Moses  and 
Aaron  with  the  magicians  and  other  occult  practi¬ 
tioners  of  old  Egypt. 

The  farther  back  we  go  in  the  study  of  the  history 


20 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


of  civilization,  the  more  we  discover  of  this  confusing 
and  debasing  superstition,  having  to  do  with  spooks 
and  spirits,  and  other  sorts  of  fantastic  conception  of 
the  probable  causes  and  explanation  of  commonplace, 
everyday  phenomena.  Careful  study  serves  to  disclose 
that  the  roots  of  spiritualism  are  deeply  sunk  in  antiq¬ 
uity.  These  dark  teachings  are  found  with  the  race  at 
its  earliest  historic  dawn,  and  there  is  abundant  evi¬ 
dence  that  superstitions  of  this  sort  were  a  part  of  the 
beliefs  and  practices  of  even  the  prehistoric  peoples. 

The  Greek  historian, Herodotus,  tells  us  manyinterest- 
ing  things  about  the  performance  of  mediums  in  his  day. 

The  early  Samarians  and  Babylonians  were  steeped 
in  mysticism,  ranging  from  astrology  to  their  numerous 
attempts  by  various  methods  to  communicate  with  the 
supernatural  spirits  of  the  invisible  world,  as  well  as 
with  the  spirits  of  departed  humans.  These  practices 
were  prevalent  all  down  through  the  centuries  imme¬ 
diately  preceding  the  Christian  era,  and  were  well  crys¬ 
tallized  and  had  attained  the  dignity  of  a  cult,  or  system, 
by  the  time  we  reach  the  early  years  of  Roman  history. 

An  illustration  of  the  ambiguous  nature  of  spirit 
communications,  of  how  mediums  always  play  safe  in 
prognosticating  the  future,  is  well  shown  in  the  case 
of  the  message  which  the  Sibylline  oracles  sent  to 
Maxentius,  who  inquired  as  to  what  the  probable  for¬ 
tunes  were  in  his  oncoming  contest  with  Constantine. 
The  oracle  replied:  “On  that  day  the  enemy  of  Rome 


Why  Is  Spiritualism 


21 


will  perish,”  and  on  the  strength  of  this  he  went  for¬ 
ward  to  battle,  was  defeated  and  drowned  when 
returning  to  Rome,  little  realizing  that  the  spirit 
message  might  be  true,  no  matter  who  was  defeated. 

In  the  days  of  Valens,  two  politicians  sought  to  se¬ 
cure  information  from  a  supernatural  source  as  to  what 
their  fortunes  might  be  in  the  succeeding  dynasty,  but 
through  regular  channels  of  espionage,  without  any 
supernatural  aid,  "the  powers  that  be”  got  next  to 
the  machinations  of  these  politicians,  and  dragged  two 
of  them,  Hilarius  and  Patricius,  into  court,  where,  after 
much  punishment,  they  revealed  the  source  of  their  in¬ 
formation  and  the  methods  of  securing  it.  It  all  sounds 
very  much  like  a  present  day  ouija  board  seance. 

And  so  it  would  appear  that  the  practice  of  spirit¬ 
ualism —  the  pretense  of  establishing  communication 
between  the  living  and  the  dead  —  is  a  very  ancient 
one.  From  the  earliest  dawn  of  history  down  to  the 
beliefs  and  practices  of  the  American  Red  Man,  we 
find  the  continuous  record  of  the  efforts  of  living  men  to 
get  in  touch  with  the  disembodied  spirits  of  their  de¬ 
parted  friends  —  to  communicate  with  the  discarnate 
entities  of  the  wise  men  of  past  ages.  There  is,  then, 
nothing  new  in  the  professions  and  claims  of  modern 
spiritualism.  As  a  practice,  as  a  belief,  a  doctrine,  it 
seems  to  be  just  about  as  old  as  the  race.  At  least,  we 
find  it  present  in  the  philosophic  teachings  of  the  olden 
races  of  all  historic  times. 


CHAPTER  II 

PREPARING  THE  PUBLIC  MIND 


SINCE  the  desire  for  immortality  is  well-nigh  uni¬ 
versal  in  the  human  species,  and  since  there  exist 
numerous  well  organized  and  quite  well  known  sys¬ 
tems  of  religious  belief  and  other  teachings  which 
definitely  assert  their  ability  to  place  living  beings  in 
communication  with  their  dead  and  departed  friends, 
and  since  human  beings  are  the  most  highly  curious 
and  investigative  of  all  animals;  we  must  recognize 
that  the  stage  is  ideally  set  to  favor  the  promulgation 
and  spread  of  the  dogmas  of  spiritualism,  or  any  other 
cult  which  claims  to  be  able  to  draw  aside  the  veil 
which  separates  this  life  from  the  next,  and  thus  in  a 
measure  to  satisfy  the  combined  craving  for  immor¬ 
tality  on  the  one  hand  and  the  curiosity  which  seeks 
to  penetrate  the  mysteries  of  the  future  and  the  un¬ 
seen  world,  on  the  other  hand. 

And  so,  at  this  time  I  want  to  call  your  attention  to 
the  conspiracy  of  influences  and  tendencies  which  so 
effectively  work,  consciously  and  unconsciously,  to  pre¬ 
pare  the  mind  of  the  average  individual  for  favorable 
disposition  toward  spiritualism. 


A.  THE  KINDERGARTEN  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

I  have  thought  best  to  classify  these  predisposing 


22 


Preparing  the  Public  Mind 


23 


tendencies  toward  spiritualism  after  the  fashion  of  our 
public  school  system,  so  our  first  group  of  spiritistic 
tendencies  will  be  called  the  Kindergarten  of  Spiritism. 

1.  CHILDLIKE  CURIOSITY 

The  very  first  step  in  the  kindergarten  preparation 
of  the  human  race  to  be  mistaught  and  deluded  by  the 
sophistries  of  modern  spiritualism,  consists  in  that  uni¬ 
versal  human  attribute  of  inquisitiveness.  Curiosity  is 
the  fundamental  and  basic  psychologic  trait  which 
enables  the  exponents  of  both  theologic  and  commer¬ 
cial  spiritism  to  gain  their  first  firm  and  secure  hold 
upon  the  human  mind. 

Without  credulity,  spiritualism  would  make  little 
headway.  It  is  pathetic  —  yes,  it  is  even  tragic  — to 
see  with  what  childlike  innocence  strong  minded, 
highly  educated  men  and  women  will,  without  ques¬ 
tion,  and  almost  without  reason,  swallow  the  flimsy 
evidence  and  accept  the  unproved  pretentions  of 
spiritualistic  mediums,  clairvoyants,  fortune  tellers, 
and  other  sorts  of  soothsayers. 

Intelligent  men  and  women,  who,  in  their  profes¬ 
sions  and  business  callings,  would  require  that  suitable 
evidence  be  offered  in  support  of  any  and  all  proposi¬ 
tions  submitted  for  their  acceptance  or  endorsement, 
will,  in  the  presence  of  alleged  spooks  and  spirits,  ac¬ 
cept,  as  satisfactory,  evidence  which  will  in  no  wise 
stand  the  least  bit  of  critical  scrutiny. 


24 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


Curiosity,  then,  we  will  put  down  as  the  chief  ele¬ 
ment  in  the  soil  which  the  spiritualists  cultivate,  in 
which  they  sow  the  seed  that  so  successfully  and  fasci¬ 
natingly  misleads  so  many  thousands  of  honest  but 
illogical  and  superficial  truth  seekers.  We  must  recog¬ 
nize  that  the  average  human  being  does  not  possess  a 
well  trained,  disciplined,  and  logical  mind.  The  ma¬ 
jority  of  mankind  are  not  trained  in  the  science  of  the 
laws  of  evidence,  and  they  are  not  highly  gifted  with 
discriminating  judgment  and  sublime  reasoning  powers. 
They,  therefore,  constitute  readymade,  ever-receptive, 
and  easily  misled  mentalities,  which  in  every  way  lend 
themselves  to  becoming  easy  victims  to  the  super¬ 
natural  claims  and  spectacular  phenomena  of  modern 
spiritualism. 

2.  SUPERSTITION  -  FEAR  PLUS  IGNORANCE 

The  second,  and  another  universal  human  trait  which 
the  spiritualists  utilize  in  their  conscious  or  uncon¬ 
scious  business  of  preying  upon  unsophisticated  hu¬ 
manity,  is  that  psychologic  trait  which  seems  almost 
second  human  nature,  and  which  we  commonly  desig¬ 
nate  by  the  term  jear.  Fear  is  a  thing  which  takes  root, 
springs  up  and  flourishes  in  the  human  mind,  like  a 
weed  does  in  a  garden.  Ignorance  is  the  powerful  fer¬ 
tilizer  of  fear  in  the  soil  of  the  human  mind,  and  not 
only  is  fear  in  a  measure  inherent  —  for  we  find  that 
children  are  born  with  the  fear  of  falling  and  the  fear  of 


Preparing  the  Public  Mind 


25 


certain  sudden,  shrill  noises  —  but  ignorance,  compara¬ 
tively  speaking,  is  also  wellnigh  universal;  and  fear 
plus  ignorance  equals  superstition;  and  superstition , 
which  is  so  widespread  among  the  common  people, 
added  to  the  innate  curiosity  of  the  race,  still  further 
serves  to  prepare  at  least  ninety  per  cent  of  the  so- 
called  civilized  races  for  the  sophistries  and  deceptions 
of  spiritualism. 

Intelligent  and  supposedly  well  educated  persons  sit 
down  in  my  office  every  day  and  tell  me  how  they  will 
not  start  a  journey  on  Friday.  They  also  tell  me  of 
dozens  of  other  little  superstitions,  fears,  phobias,  and 
obsessions  which  they  indulge,  showing  that  we  are  a 
long  way  from  freeing  the  popular  mind  of  the  notion 
that  horseshoes  bring  good  luck,  that  breaking  a  look¬ 
ing  glass  causes  seven  years  of  bad  luck,  or  death  in  the 
family,  not  to  mention  the  ill  omens  of  black  cats,  walk¬ 
ing  under  a  ladder,  etc.,  etc. 

I  well  remember  being  reared  in  an  intelligent  com¬ 
munity  in  the  State  of  Indiana,  and,  as  a  little  shaver, 
wearing  about  my  neck  a  bag  of  asafetida  and  sulphur 
which  was  warranted  to  keep  off  disease.  And  well 
might  it  enjoy  this  reputation,  if  the  bugs  themselves 
possessed  an  olfactory  sense!  But  it  was  merely  a  slight 
shifting  from  the  superstition  of  the  charms  which 
were  worn  by  some  of  our  not  too  remote  ancestors  to 
drive  off  devils,  which,  in  their  day,  were  supposed  to 
be  the  instigators  of  disease. 


26 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


As  long  as  the  basis  of  so  much  of  our  theologic  be¬ 
lief  is  fear,  so  long  as  heredity  dooms  so  many  of  us  to 
be  more  or  less  weakminded,  and  modern  education 
does  so  little  to  train  the  brains  with  which  inheritance 
does  endow  us;  then  must  we  expect  to  find  prevailing 
in  the  average  mind  a  sufficient  amount  of  fear  and 
ignorance  which,  combined,  create  that  superstitious 
state  of  mind  which  so  beautifully  prepares  the  indi¬ 
vidual  of  its  indwelling  to  become  a  willing  dupe  and 
ready  victim  to  the  curiosity-satisfying  and  supersti¬ 
tious-appealing  delusions  of  spiritualism. 

3.  HUMAN  TRUSTFULNESS 

Not  only  is  the  human  mind  innately  curious,  and 
the  human  being  naturally  superstitious,  but  strange  to 
record,  the  average  human  being  is  over-trustful. 
Many  individuals,  long  since  attaining  their  majority, 
still  possess  that  trustfulness  that  characterizes  the 
child,  particularly  when  it  comes  to  matters  religious 
and  supposedly  supernatural.  Not  only  are  we  cu¬ 
rious,  fearful  and  ignorant,  all  of  which  conspire  to  make 
us  more  or  less  superstitious,  but  we  are  also  danger¬ 
ously  trustful. 

We  have  been  taught  to  believe  in  those  who  teach 
us  in  the  name  of  religion,  those  who  speak  inspired 
ex  cathedra ,  those  who  are  the  mouthpiece  of  God  to 
their  day  and  generation.  And  so  the  very  trustfulness 
of  religious  faith  and  loyalty  to  the  theologic  creed 


Preparing  the  Public  Mind 


27 


serves  to  lay  the  foundation  in  the  minds  of  the  com¬ 
mon  people  for  their  blind  belief  in  the  dogmas  of 
spiritism  and  for  their  easy  deception  by  the  phenomena 
of  spiritualism. 

It  does  not  occur  to  the  average  person  that  the 
spiritualistic  medium  might  be  perpetrating  an  out¬ 
rageous  fraud  upon  their  unsuspecting  minds.  It  does 
not  occur  to  the  common  people  that  the  soothsayers 
may  be  practicing  deception  upon  them,  and  it  is  still 
more  remote  from  the  cogitations  of  the  man  in  the 
street  that  this  self-same  spiritualistic  medium  may  be 
self-deceived.  At  any  rate,  there  is  manifest  a  wide¬ 
spread  disposition,  on  the  part  of  mankind,  to  lend 
themselves  as  willing,  trusting  and  confiding  victims  to 
this  whole  propaganda  that  centers  itself  about  the 
pivotal  theme  of  putting  this  generation  of  the  living 
into  communication  with  the  souls  of  those  who  have 
passed  on  into  the  Great  Beyond. 

4.  IGNORANCE  OF  NATURAL  LAW 

One  great  influence  which  contributes  to  the  per¬ 
petuation  of  superstition  in  the  minds  of  young  people 
as  they  grow  up  toward  maturity,  is  the  inability  or 
unwillingness  of  their  elders  properly  to  instruct  them 
in  the  domain  of  natural  law  —  in  the  realm  of  Na¬ 
ture’s  commonplace  phenomena. 

Every  opportunity  should  be  embraced  to  disabuse 
the  mind  of  the  growing  child  of  the  notion  that  the 


28 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


natural  world  is  jogging  along  in  a  haphazard  manner, 
controlled  more  or  less  by  arbitrary  influences.  Thun¬ 
der  and  lightning,  rain  and  wind,  sunshine  and  vege¬ 
tation,  earthquakes,  volcanoes,  and  floods,  should  all 
be  accounted  for  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  physics 
and  chemistry  as  they  operate  in  the  control  and  direc¬ 
tion  of  the  natural  world.  In  this  way  much  of  the  fear 
on  which  superstition  so  largely  acts  in  the  case  of  the 
primitive  peoples,  when  it  still  persists  in  the  minds  of 
the  so-called  civilized  races,  can  be  greatly  reduced  so 
that  the  mind  of  the  modern  man  will  come  to  be  dom¬ 
inated  more  by  the  notion  that  he  lives  in  a  world  of 
law  and  order,  a  realm  controlled  by  the  precise  laws 
of  physics  and  chemistry;  and  thus  a  mental  attitude 
of  self-confidence,  assurance,  and  stability,  will  take 
the  place  of  those  states  of  fear,  apprehension,  and  inse¬ 
curity,  all  of  which,  as  applied  to  the  problem  of  spirit¬ 
ism,  spell  superstition. 

Much  can  be  done  to  antidote  the  youthful  tendency 
toward  credulity  and  superstition,  and  subsequently 
the  leanings  toward  spiritualism,  by  the  proper  teach¬ 
ing  of  physiology,  psychology,  and  heredity,  not  to 
mention  the  physical  sciences  of  physics,  chemistry  and 
geology.  Both  religious  and  secular  teachers  have  it  in 
their  power  so  to  direct  the  teaching  of  the  rising  gen¬ 
eration  as  to  render  it  far  less  susceptible  to  the  sophis¬ 
tries  of  spiritualistic  propaganda  when  it  shall  have 
grown  up  to  maturity. 


Preparing  the  Public  Mind 


29 


We  should  so  educate  the  rising  generation  that  when 
it  beholds  a  material  phenomenon  it  will  first  start  in, 
logically  and  analytically,  to  seek  to  find  the  explana¬ 
tion  in  physical  laws.  Our  minds  should  be  so  trained 
in  the  science  of  logic  and  the  art  of  analysis  as  to  refuse 
to  accept  a  spiritual  explanation  for  a  physical  phe¬ 
nomenon  until  every  known  resource  of  scientific  check 
has  been  exhausted  under  the  most  fair  conditions  of 
experimental  control  and  critical  observation.  Such 
a  state  of  mind  on  the  part  of  the  observer  would  pre¬ 
clude  the  possibility  of  the  commonplace,  everyday  de¬ 
ceptions  now  perpetrated  by  fraudulent  mediums  by 
means  of  their  cunning  tricks  and  trumpery. 

5.  HOBGOBLINS  AND  OTHER  CHILDHOOD  FEARS 

The  fears  of  early  childhood  are  greatly  augmented 
by  the  careless  words  of  thoughtless  parents,  who,  in 
their  unthinking  methods  of  discipline,  and  ignorant 
technique  of  child-culture,  constantly  threaten  their 
little  ones  with  “hobgoblins”  and  “bogiemen,”  as  an 
inducement  to  improve  personal  conduct  and  correct 
general  misbehavior,  which  is  such  a  natural  part  of 
the  experience  of  the  earlier  developmental  periods  of 
childhood.  It  is  a  crime  to  frighten  a  child  by  taking  it 
to  the  window  at  eventide  and  exclaiming  “  boo— dark.” 

What  unnatural  and  unfortunate  states  of  mind  are 
early  initiated  in  the  youthful  brain  by  such  unthinking 
remarks  as,  “The  policeman  will  cut  your  ears  off,” 


30 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


“the  bogieman  will  get  you  if  you  don’t  look  out,”  “if 
you  are  naughty  the  Bad  Man  will  come  and  get  you,” 
etc.,  etc.  These  thoughtless  remarks  by  older  members 
of  the  family  not  only  contribute  to  the  building  up  of 
unwholesome  and  unnatural  fear-complexes  in  the 
mind  of  the  growing  child,  but  they  also  very  early  sug¬ 
gest  to  its  tender  and  susceptible  soul  the  idea  that 
things  unusual  and  extraordinary  lurk  in  the  dark;  that 
beings  inhuman  and  superhuman  stalk  about  on  earth 
during  the  night  season;  that  supernatural  spirits 
abound  in  this  realm,  and  that  they  are  liable  to  pounce 
upon  us  if  we  depart  more  or  less  from  the  conventional 
and  orthodox  pathway  of  life. 

The  doctrine  of  good  spirits  and  evil  spirits  is  very 
early  inculcated  into  the  child’s  mind,  in  the  average 
household  of  civilized  peoples,  and  thus  most  fittingly 
is  the  foundation  laid  for  their  subsequent  excursions 
into  the  realms  of  supposedly  applied  spiritualism,  in 
their  efforts  to  communicate  with  the  dead  and  to  tap 
the  intellectual  storehouse  of  the  unseen  world. 

6.  GHOSTS  -  FEAR  OF  THE  DEAD 

Hard  it  would  be  indeed  to  find  the  individual  who 
cannot  remember  the  cold  shivers  travelling  up  and 
down  the  youthful  spine  as  they  sat  about  the  fireside 
on  long  winter  evenings  and  listened  to  “ghost  stories,” 
as  their  young  minds  had  indelibly  impressed  upon  them 
the  narratives  of  haunted  houses;  and  as  the  years  passed 


Preparing  the  Public  Mind 


31 


there  was  added  to  this  ghost-lore  the  stories  of  rap- 
pings  on  the  bed,  shifting  of  tables,  and  other  hair- 
raising  and  heart-agitating  tales,  all  of  which  were 
more  or  less  believed  by  those  who  told  them. 

True,  the  ghost  story  has  sometimes  been  told  as 
such,  but  it  is  a  fact  that  it  is  all  too  true  that  much  of 
this  nonsense  has  been  believed  by  the  average  citizen; 
at  any  rate,  these  narratives  serve  to  make  a  profound 
impression  upon  the  youthful  mind  and  they  serve  to 
complete  the  thorough  preparation  of  the  soil  and  sub¬ 
soil  of  the  human  intellect  for  subsequent  spiritualistic 
tendencies. 

From  earliest  memory,  children  recall  that  their 
elders  manifest  a  peculiar  fear  of  dead  persons.  They 
have  so  many  times  heard  the  statement  by  some  one 
of  the  family  or  their  friends  that  they  “would  not  for 
anything  in  the  world  remain  in  the  room,  alone,  with  a 
dead  person.”  The  average  boy  or  girl  grows  up  with 
such  an  exaggerated  fear  of  death  and  dead  people  that 
they  often  can  hardly  be  persuaded  to  touch  the  body 
of  a  dead  person.  And  all  this  unnatural  awe  and  arti¬ 
ficial  fear  of  death  and  dead  bodies  which  has  been  cul¬ 
tivated,  from  time  immemorial,  serves  to  develop,  in 
the  growing  mind  of  our  youth,  a  basic  psychology 
which  most  admirably  serves  the  purpose  of  the  spirit¬ 
istic  propagandists.  This  uncalled  for  fear  of  the  dead 
produces  that  state  of  mental  awe  that  so  readily  con¬ 
tributes  to  that  credulity  and  superstition  which  is  so 


32 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


essential  to  preparing  the  mind,  in  later  life,  for  the 
deceptions  and  delusions  of  spiritualistic  phenomena. 

The  belief  in  ghosts,  then,  is  the  final  step  in  the 
kindergarten  of  spiritism.  It  serves  to  round  out  those 
influences  which  will  invariably  tend  to  make  spirit¬ 
ualism  attractive  to  the  shallow  and  unthinking  ele¬ 
ments  of  our  population.  When  you  believe  in  ghosts, 
you  are  about  ready,  psychologically  speaking,  to  get 
out  of  the  kindergarten  class  of  spiritualists,  and  are 
qualified  to  take  up  your  further  course  in  the  grades 
of  what  might  be  called  the  “Common  School  of  Spir¬ 
itualism.” 


B.  THE  COMMON  SCHOOL  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

Having  passed  through  the  kindergarten  stage  of 
curiosity,  ignorance,  superstition,  childhood  fears, 
ghosts,  and  the  fear  of  the  dead,  the  average  human  • 
being  is  well  qualified  to  begin  the  next  steps  in  the 
commonplace  and  conventional  training  of  the  grow¬ 
ing  mind  to  become  a  believer  in,  and  a  victim  of, 
spiritualism. 


1.  MEDICAL  SUPERSTITION 

Unfortunately,  we  doctors,  in  the  past,  have  been 
unconscious  contributors  to  the  credulity  of  our  pa¬ 
tients.  We  have  been  wont  to  look  wise  and  act 
solemn,  to  write  mysterious  prescriptions  in  unknown 
Latin  for  supposedly  powerful  and  potent  medicines 


Preparing  the  Public  Mind 


33 


which  the  patient,  without  understanding  anything  of 
the  laws  of  cause  and  effect,  would  swallow  in  ignorance 
and  with  more  or  less  reverent  awe,  and  straightway 
expect  to  get  well  —  expect  a  sudden,  mysterious,  and 
almost  miraculous  change  of  symptoms. 

The  superstitious  awe  and  reverence  with  which  the 
family  physician,  in  a  passing  generation,  was  held  in 
esteem  by  the  average  household,  while  beautiful  to 
recall  and  sublime  to  contemplate,  was,  nevertheless, 
but  a  perpetuation  of  that  tendency  of  bygone  times  in 
which  the  common  people  were  priest-ridden,  grossly 
misled,  shamefully  dominated,  by  the  shrewder  and 
more  sagacious  elements  of  their  day  and  generation, 
who  assumed  the  prerogatives  of  religious  teacher  and 
medical  practitioner,  and  in  these  combined  roles  di¬ 
rected  the  management  of  their  sufferings  on  earth  and 
sought  to  control  their  spiritual  destiny  when  they  had 
passed  on  into  another  world. 

The  medical  profession  is  just  beginning  to  rid  itself 
of  these  unfair  practices  and  superstitious  tendencies. 
Today  the  physician  is  becoming  more  of  a  teacher, 
instructing  his  patients  in  the  laws  of  living,  as  they 
pertain  to  the  realms  of  mind  and  body,  thus  pointing 
the  sick  toward  the  stability  of  natural  law  as  the  se¬ 
curity  and  source  of  cure,  leading  them  away  from  the 
tendencies  of  self-drugging  and  devotion  to  patent 
medicines. 

The  doctors  of  this  and  coming  generations  can  do 


34  The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 

much  to  antidote  the  conventional  tendency  to  pro¬ 
duce,  in  the  popular  mind,  those  states  of  psychology 
which  so  easily  lend  themselves  to  unfounded  and 
credulous  beliefs  in  spiritualistic  phenomena.  The 
doctor  can  do  much  to  teach  his  patients  a  proper  un¬ 
derstanding  of  the  laws  of  life,  to  have  them  under¬ 
stand  that  pathology  is  but  perverted  physiology,  that 
disease  is  but  the  phenomenon  of  health  manifesting 
itself  under  abnormal  or  difficult  conditions,  that  death 
is  but  a  cessation  of  the  forces  of  life. 

Medical  men  and  women  owe  it  to  their  clients  to 
help  them  in  overcoming  this  wellnigh  universal  ten¬ 
dency  to  look  with  fear  and  awe  upon  death,  and  with 
dread  and  superstition  upon  the  dead.  The  family 
physician,  when  death  has  appeared  in  a  family  or  in 
the  neighborhood,  could  take  some  abnormal  boy  or 
girl,  and  with  five  minutes'  instruction  and  by  accom¬ 
panying  them  into  the  death  chamber,  save  them  life¬ 
long  suffering  and  nervous  tendency  on  the  one  hand, 
from  the  standpoint  of  their  personal  physical  health; 
as  well  as  to  deliver  them,  perchance,  from  that  un¬ 
natural  fear  of  death  which  serves  to  make  them  such 
ready  victims  to  some  sort  of  spiritistic  propaganda  in 
their  later  years. 

2.  “magnetic  healing” 

If  medical  superstition,  or  fear  and  ignorance  regard¬ 
ing  ordinary  medical  practices,  constitutes  the  first 


35 


Preparing  the  Public  Mind 

grade  in  the  common  school  of  preparation  for  spirit¬ 
ualism,  magnetic  healing  may  be  said  to  constitute  the 
second  grade.  We  commonly  hear  certain  persons 
spoken  of  as  having  a  “magnetic  personality.”  Here 
our  ignorance  of  the  laws  of  psychology  and  the  means  by 
which  one  person  influences  other  persons,  leads  to  an 
erroneous  belief  that  certain  persons  possess  some  sort  of 
influence  which  is  commonly  spoken  of  as  “magnetism.” 

It  is  but  a  step  from  this  belief  in  “magnetic  per¬ 
sonality,”  as  we  meet  it  in  ordinary  social  and  com¬ 
mercial  intercourse,  to  the  superstitious  belief  in  the 
ability  of  certain  persons  to  utilize  this  possession  as  a 
means  of  healing  disease;  and  in  this  way  there  grows  up 
a  belief  in  “magnetic  healing”  —  a  notion  that  certain 
persons  can  cure  disease  by  laying  hands  on  the  afflicted. 

The  phenomenon  of  life,  health,  healing,  and  disease, 
not  to  say  death,  must  be  put  upon  a  simple,  plain, 
and  practical  basis  of  natural  law.  The  mysticism  and 
superstition  of  health  and  disease  must  be  dissipated 
as  a  part  of  the  educational  program  of  rearing  our  sons 
and  daughters,  so  that  they  will  grow  up  comparatively 
free  from  those  superstitious  tendencies  which  predis¬ 
pose  them  to  spiritualism  in  their  later  times  of  distress 
and  dismay. 


3.  PALMISTRY  AND  ASTROLOGY. 

The  belief  that  some  extraordinary  individual  can 
gaze  into  the  palm  of  your  hand  and  then  proceed  to 


36 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


delineate  character,  diagnose  disease,  and  foretell  in 
detail  all  the  exigencies  and  emergencies  of  the  future, 
not  to  mention  the  pretension  of  prophesy  relating  to 
business  affairs,  love,  marriage,  and  divorce  —  all  but 
serve  to  indicate  the  inherent  credulity  of  mankind, 
and  to  show  just  why  the  average  man  or  woman  is  so 
easily  imposed  upon  by  the  flimsy  pretenses  and  per¬ 
formances  of  spiritualism. 

The  ease  with  which  some  apparently  intelligent  per¬ 
sons  are  led  to  believe  that  their  life,  career,  and  eternal 
destiny  are  controlled  by  the  juxtaposition  of  the  starry 
hosts  at  the  time  of  their  birth  constitutes  still  further 
evidence  of  human  gullibility,  and  indicates  how  willing 
most  people  are  to  be  deceived  and  misled  by  common¬ 
place  superstition  and  the  claims  of  those  who  make 
their  living  by  foisting  upon  the  public  the  delusions 
of  supernatural  sophistry. 

Just  when  astrology  got  mixed  up  with  medicine  is 
hard  to  say,  but  it  was  certainly  a  prominent  part  of 
both  the  healing  art  and  religious  worship,  back  in  the 
earliest  Chaldean  periods.  But  the  peculiar  part  of 
the  whole  belief  is  its  persistence  down  to  the  present 
day.  There  is  sufficient  public  interest  in  this  thing 
to  lead  Metropolitan  dailies  to  carry  a  regular  column 
devoted  to  astrology,  just  as  they  do  one  devoted  to 
health,  beauty  hints,  cookery,  baseball,  etc. 

Ancient  superstition  lingers  long  in  the  human  mind. 
In  spite  of  our  agricultural  colleges,  you  can  still  find 


Preparing  the  Public  Mind 


37 


farmers  who  are  wont  to  plant  their  potatoes  in  the 
light  of  the  moon,  and  we  still  meet  with  the  sad-eyed, 
downcast  youth  wdio  feels  that  his  adventures  in  either 
business  or  matrimony  are  doomed  to  failure  because 
he  was  born  under  the  sway  of  an  adverse  starry  con¬ 
stellation. 

And  the  net  result  of  all  this  thing  is  but  to  serve  the 
purpose  of  further  preparing  the  human  mind  for  its 
continued  enslavement  to  the  superstitious  fears  and 
dogmas  of  past  ages,  and  to  pave  the  way  for  the  subse¬ 
quent  appearance  of  the  more  colossal  spiritistic  de¬ 
ceptions  and  delusions,  involving  not  only  the  health 
of  man’s  body  and  the  peace  of  his  mind,  but  unsettling 
his  intellectual  equilibrium,  and  even  jeopardizing  his 
eternal  welfare. 


4.  FORTUNE  TELLING. 

As  our  youth  progress  in  the  modern  maze  of  super¬ 
stitious  deceptions  and  psychic  delusions,  they  soon 
arrive  at  the  fourth  grade  of  the  common,  or  prepara¬ 
tory  school  of  spiritism,  and  find  there  their  teachers, 
the  fortune  tellers,  all  ready  further  to  upbuild  and 
foster  these  credulous  complexes  and  still  further  to 
enslave  their  ignorant  minds  to  beliefs  in  mysticism 
and  fears  of  the  supernatural. 

In  the  practice  of  my  profession,  I  am  constantly 
meeting  with  apparently  intelligent  individuals  whose 
whole  careers  have  been  wrecked  and  ruined  by  the 


38 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


fears  and  misgivings  generated  at  some  time  or  other 
in  their  lives  by  contact  with  a  fortune  teller,  who 
predicted  that  some  dire  calamity  or  devastating  catas- 
trophy  would  overtake  them  at  some  future  time. 

The  state  of  mind  and  emotion  that  dominates  the 
average  person  as  they  go  into  the  presence  of  the  for¬ 
tune  teller,  the  trumpery  of  the  environment,  the  dim¬ 
ness  of  the  light,  the  whole  atmosphere  of  the  occasion 
is  such  as  to  appeal  to  these  primitive  fears,  and  arouse 
the  lingering  superstition  that  still  pervades  the  human 
mind;  and  thus  every  influence  of  this  sort  serves  but 
to  strengthen  those  latent  superstitious  leanings  of  the 
race,  and  also  to  divert  these  tendencies  into  those 
channels  of  thought  and  avenues  of  emotion  that  tend 
to  make  them  more  and  more  susceptible  to  the  notion 
of  getting  information  from  a  supernatural  source,  and 
of  securing  advice  and  guidance  through  extraordinary 
and  unusual  channels. 

The  fortune  tellers  are  all  advance  agents  for  spirit¬ 
ualism.  They  are  the  forerunners  of  the  medium,  and 
it  is  but  one  step  from  seeking  unearned  knowledge  at 
the  hands  of  the  fortune  teller,  to  crossing  the  street  to 
get  a  more  dependable  and  higher  class  of  information 
from  the  medium  who  professes  to  be  able  to  put  us 
in  communication  with  the  savants  and  sages  of  a 
departed  age;  who  claim  to  be  able  to  bring  up  for  our 
instruction  and  guidance,  the  dead  and  departed  of  our 
own  day  and  generation. 


Preparing  the  Public  Mind 


39 


We  have  been  taught,  as  a  part  of  our  theologic  up¬ 
bringing,  that  in  times  past  the  Supreme  Being  spake 
to  holy  men  of  old.  We  have  been  taught  to  respect 
and  reverence  the  prophets  and  to  believe  their  proph¬ 
ecies.  What  more  natural  drift  of  human  reasoning,  in 
its  superficial  channels,  than  to  conclude  that  if  men 
of  ancient  times  could  contact  with  the  supernatural 
sources  of  knowledge  and  communicate  with  the  fount 
of  supernatural  wisdom,  that  perhaps  after  all  there 
may  be  some  truth  in  the  claims  of  those  who  profess 
to  peer  into  the  future,  and  who  will,  if  their  palms 
are  crossed  with  silver,  deign  to  divulge  their  vision  to 
us;  and  thus  might  we  be  able  to  occupy  a  position  of 
vantage,  being  in  possession  of  knowledge  extra-human 
and  wisdom  supernatural. 

The  fortune  telling  craze  is  a  very  integral  part  of 
the  life  of  the  common  people.  It  is  not  merely  the 
quaint,  brilliantly-garbed  gypsy  who  indulges  in  this 
art,  but  it  is  more  or  less  of  a  serious  pastime  in  many 
circles  of  societv. 


5.  CLAIRVOYANCY 

But  the  fortune  tellers  were  but  the  commonplace 
preliminary  to  the  next  step,  the  fifth  grade  of  our 
common  school  of  preparatory  training  for  the  decep¬ 
tions  of  spiritism  —  the  clairvoyants.  These  mystic, 
psychic  souls,  the  seventh  daughters  of  seventh  sons, 
these  shrewd  and  sagacious  psychic  profiteers,  born 


40 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


with  a  veil  over  the  face,  are  regarded  with  super¬ 
stitious  awe  by  tens  of  thousands  of  otherwise  seem¬ 
ingly  intelligent  men  and  women.  How  often  we  hear 
a  well  educated  person  speak  of  some  other  individual 
as  being  a  “psychic. ”  How  common  is  the  belief  of 
one  part  of  the  race  that  the  other  possesses  some  extra¬ 
intellectual  source  of  information  regarding  human 
affairs  in  general,  and  individual  destiny  in  particular. 

I  have  had  under  my  care,  at  one  time  or  another, 
many  clairvoyants,  psychics,  and  other  of  these  sup¬ 
posedly  extraordinary  individuals.  In  most  instances 
I  have  found  them  to  be  mediocre  individuals  of  little 
education,  but  who  possessed  an  inherent  sagacity,  an 
inborn  shrewdness,  not  to  say  ability,  that  conspired  to 
give  them  a  peculiar  and  sometimes  intuitive  insight 
into  human  nature.  They  are  often  good  judges  of 
temperament  and  character,  and  they,  like  the  palmists, 
sometimes  when  looking  into  the  plantar  surface  of  the 
hand,  indulge  in  frequent  and  searching  glances  at  the 
face.  As  one  clairvoyant  told  me:  “We  hold  the  hands 
but  we  read  the  face.  ” 

It  will  be  observed  that  most  clairvoyants  are  women, 
for  it  is  a  well  known  fact  that  women  usually  possess 
more  of  this  intuitive  ability  to  discern  human  nature 
as  compared  with  men.  Some  of  the  specialists  in  the 
study  of  ductless  glands  tell  us  that  this  is  because 
women  have  a  larger  posterior  pituitary;  that  man 
possesses  a  larger  anterior  lobe  and  is  therefore  more 


Preparing  the  Public  Mind 


41 


gifted  in  analytical  reason  and  more  reliable  in  mature 
judgment;  but  woman,  because  of  this  fact  that  she 
has  a  superior  posterior  lobe  of  the  pituitary  gland,  has 
more  ability  when  it  comes  to  sizing  up  and  prognosti¬ 
cating  human  character.  At  any  rate,  most  of  the  clair¬ 
voyants  are  women,  and  the  majority  who  have  been 
under  my  professional  care  have  been  able  to  offer  but 
little  explanation  regarding  their  supposed  abilities. 
Indeed,  it  is  very  difficult  sometimes,  in  these  clair¬ 
voyant  cases,  to  determine  and  judge  between  those 
who  are  insane  and  those  who  are  merely  victims  of 
some  minor  dissociation  disturbances  or  some  major 
disorder  of  personality. 

6.  CRYSTAL  GAZING  AND  SHELL  HEARING 

We  are  wont  to  smile  at  the  crystal  gazers  and  the 
shell  listeners.  But  they  are  still  with  us.  Just  as 
surely  as  there  are  to  be  found  a  class  of  people  who 
are  natural  born  gamblers  —  and  not  at  all  a  small 
class,  by  the  way  —  persons  who  still  confidently  expect 
to  obtain  their  fortune  by  chance,  who  will  never  be 
weaned  from  the  idea  that  you  can,  if  you  are  shrewd 
enough,  get  something  for  nothing;  who  will  live  and 
die  ever  risking  their  fortune  on  the  wheel  of  chance; 
so  we  have  a  natural  born  group  of  men  and  women, 
who,  instead  of  subjecting  their  minds  to  rigorous 
training,  stern  discipline;  who,  instead  of  gaining  an 
education  by  laborious  study  and  long-continued  appli- 


42 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


cation,  still  believe  that  they  will  in  time,  through 
their  shrewdness  and  sagacity,  get  in  contact  with  some 
extraordinary  source  of  information  that  will  enable 
them  instantly  to  gain  riches,  happiness,  health  and 
fame. 

Those  superstitious  individuals,  instead  of  harnessing 
up  their  brain  power  and  utilizing  to  the  full  their 
intellectual  capacity,  believe  that  the  secrets  of  business 
success,  the  winning  of  my  fair  lady’s  hand,  domestic 
tranquillity,  and  even  health  and  happiness  are  to  be 
secured  from  those  vagaries  and  images  which  may  be 
caused  to  fleet  across  the  human  brain  as  the  result 
of  eye-strain  and  long  continued,  devout  gaze  into  the 
substance  of  an  inert  glass  ball. 

If  we  can  hope  to  gain  some  coveted  intelligence  by 
listening  at  the  aperture  of  a  sea-shell,  how  much  more 
likely  are  we  to  gain  valuable  knowledge  if  a  spiritual¬ 
istic  medium  can  let  us  hear  the  very  voice  of  a  dead 
and  departed  friend.  If  crystal  gazing  can  afford  us 
visions  or  apparitions  pleasant  to  look  upon,  or  able 
to  contribute  to  our  happiness  and  success,  how  much 
more  likely  are  we  to  be  directed  aright  if  we  can  gaze 
upon  the  shadowy,  luminous  outline  —  ghost  forms  — 
of  the  departed  great  men  and  women  of  this  or  another 
generation,  and  through  their  contacts  with  this  real 
and  living  world  of  ours,  receive  their  instructions  and 
guidance,  receive  their  answers  to  our  questions,  and 
feel  their  benediction  rest  upon  our  very  soul. 


Preparing  the  Public  Mind 


43 


And  thus,  when  we  seriously  analyze  the  psychology 
of  all  these  mystic  performances,  whose  continuance 
rests  upon  the  credulity  and  superstition  of  the  popular 
mind,  we  see  they  are  but  stepping  stones  which  lead 
us  on  toward  spiritualism  as  the  superior  channel  and 
the  supreme  culmination  of  these  vague  tendencies  and 
efforts  to  secure  unearned  knowledge,  and  to  possess 
ourselves  of  supernatural  information. 

7.  RELICS  AND  SHRINES 

As  we  enter  the  seventh  grade  of  our  preparatory 
school  of  spiritualism,  we  again  come  in  contact  with 
a  strong  religious  atmosphere  surrounding  our  sacred 
relics  and  the  shrines  of  miracle-making  reputation. 
In  all  ages  and  at  all  times,  there  have  existed  health 
delusions  and  healing  deceptions,  and  the  present  age 
is  no  exception.  From  time  immemorial  relics  have 
been  associated  with  health  and  disease.  The  bodies 
of  some  of  the  saints  have  been  reputed  to  possess 
health-giving  properties;  even  to  touch  the  tomb  of 
some  of  the  saints  was  reported  to  cure  disease. 

A  concoction  made  from  a  piece  of  tombstone  of  a 
good  man  was  supposed,  at  one  time,  to  cure  disease 
when  everything  else  had  failed.  For  some  diseases  it 
is  alleged  that  it  is  a  sure  cure  to  lick  the  tombstone  of 
a  saint  —  nothing  being  said,  of  course,  about  the 
danger  of  catching  the  disease  of  any  predecessor,  who 
may  have  previously  deposited  the  microbes  of  his  mala- 


44 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


dy  thereon,  while  in  this  same  way  seeking  deliverance. 

Our  sane  and  sober  ancestors  believed  that  to  kiss 
the  temple  floors  whereon  the  saints  had  trod  was  sup¬ 
posed  to  confer  extraordinary  healing  power.  Of  course 
it  will  be  argued  that  we  are  more  intelligent  in  this  day 
and  generation.  But  are  we?  Ethnologists  tell  us  that 
the  Old  Man  of  Cromagnon1  had  just  about  as  much 
brain  capacity  as  we  have.  And  while,  on  the  whole, 
we  have  made  great  progress  in  material  skill  and 
mechanical  cunning,  the  average  man,  from  the  recent 
tests  made  in  the  United  States  Army,  is  shown  to  be 
only  about  twelve  or  thirteen  years  of  age,  mentally, 
and  therefore  is  not  possessed  of  any  extraordinary 
reasoning  power  or  analytical  ability  which  would  cause 
him  to  stand  out  as  in  any  way  superior  to  his  ancestors 
of  even  a  remote  age. 


8.  THE  MAGICIANS 

Who  does  not  enjoy  spending  an  entertaining  evening 
watching,  and  being  fooled  by,  a  master  magician? 
From  childhood,  we  have  enjoyed  the  spectacular,  the 
elusive,  the  mysterious.  From  our  earliest  memory, 
we  recall  those  moments  of  keen  anticipation  and  inex¬ 
pressible  joy  as  we  watched  the  magician  pluck  coins 
out  of  the  air  or  drag  forth  wriggling  rabbits  from  the 
coat  collars  of  our  embarrassed  townsmen. 

1  The  Cro-Magnon  type  lived  in  South  Western  Europe  at  least  25,000 
years  ago. 


Preparing  the  Public  Mind 


45 


Barnum  spoke  the  truth  when  he  said,  “The  people 
like  to  be  humbugged.”  Now,  it  is  true  that  our  boys 
and  girls,  as  they  grow  up,  learn  that  much  of  what  the 
magician  does  is  by  sleight-of-hand  technique,  by  leger¬ 
demain.  At  the  same  time,  the  magician  always  carries 
about  him,  by  his  very  personal  appearance,  his  adver¬ 
tising  posters,  and  some  of  those  things  which  he  says 
and  does  during  his  performance — I  say,  he  suggests  the 
idea  and  portrays  the  atmosphere  of  the  supernatural. 
One  magician  advertises  his  performance  by  a  poster 
which  shows  a  little  red  devil  whispering  in  his  ear. 

The  magicians  are  unconscious  purveyors  to  cred¬ 
ulity,  superstition  and  belief  in  the  possibility  of  com¬ 
monplace  contact  with  the  supernatural,  even  though 
many  of  them  sincerely  intend  just  the  opposite.  The 
very  fact  that  our  youth  are  able  as  they  grow  up,  to 
duplicate  some  of  the  magician’s  tricks,  but  cannot 
duplicate  others,  tends  to  raise  the  question  of  the 
possibility  of  the  utilization  of  some  of  the  unknown 
or  supernatural  forces  in  the  perpetration  of  the  more 
elaborate  of  the  magician’s  stunts.  There  are  a  great 
many  earnest  people  who  will  not  go,  even  today,  to 
a  magician’s  performance,  because  they  believe  he  is 
in  league  with  devils  - —  that  there  is  something  dan¬ 
gerously  unChristian  about  the  whole  affair. 

The  magicians  must,  of  course,  keep  the  technique 
of  their  tricks  secret,  or  they  would  not  fascinate  and 
allure  the  public.  We  do  not  enjoy  seeing  a  trick  per- 


46 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


petrated  upon  us  if  we  understand  the  details  of  its 
performance.  It  is  our  ignorance  of  the  technique  that 
attracts  and  entertains  us.  We  are  not  allured  by  the 
obvious  and  the  commonplace. 

It  is  interesting,  in  this  connection,  to  note  that  the 
magicians  of  olden  times  belonged  to  the  priesthood  — 
that  the  modern  magician  is  a  sort  of  secular  descendant 
of  the  sacredotal  workers  of  a  bygone  age.  These 
ancient  wonder-workers  claimed  to  be  able  to  relieve 
suffering  and  cure  disease  by  supernatural  methods. 
Alexander  the  Great  is  said  always  to  have  had  one 
of  these  medicine  men  connected  with  his  staff,  and 
Nero  was  an  ardent  pupil  of  the  Magi  of  his  day. 

It  must  be  clear  that  not  one  but  many  —  and  before 
we  have  finished,  we  shall  show  still  others  —  influences 
and  agencies  are  at  work  which,  all  taken  together, 
serve  to  create  a  mental  state  easy  of  approach  by  the 
technique  employed  by  spiritualistic  mediums.  Thus, 
after  having  discussed  those  kindergarten  or  early 
influences  so  basic  in  the  psychology  of  man,  as  em¬ 
braced  in  fear,  superstition,  curiosity,  and  trustfulness, 
we  have  come  on  down  through  a  group  of  eight  com¬ 
monplace  practices  which  we  have  called  the  common, 
or  preparatory  school  for  spiritualism,  ending  with  the 
magician;  and  next  we  will  proceed  to  a  further  study 
along  these  lines,  by  taking  up  a  group  of  influences 
which  we  may  appropriately  denominate  the  ‘‘high 
school  of  spiritism.” 


Preparing  the  Public  Mind 


47 


C.  THE  HIGH  SCHOOL  OF  SPIRITISM 

Having  methodically  studied  those  influences  of 
earlier  life  which  contribute  to  the  mystic  tendencies 
of  the  human  mind,  it  will  next  be  in  order  to  consider 
some  of  the  influences  of  a  more  advanced  nature, 
wrhich  likewise  predispose  their  students  and  practi¬ 
tioners  to  the  nefarious  teachings  and  tendencies  of  the 
occult  sects. 

1.  DREAMS  AND  THEIR  INTERPRETATIONS 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that,  from  the  earliest  dawn 
of  reason  the  phantasms  of  the  dream  world  have  had 
much  to  do  with  shaping  human  thought  and  philos¬ 
ophy  in  its  waking  moments.  Undoubtedly,  the  vague 
symbolism,  the  mystic  atmosphere,  and  the  unreality 
of  many  persons  and  objects  recalled  from  the  dream 
experience,  has  had  a  great  deal  to  do  on  the  one  hand 
with  the  evolution  of  primitive  religion,  and  has  exerted 
an  undoubted  influence  on  the  other  hand  toward  pre¬ 
disposing  mankind  naturally  to  incline,  in  his  philos¬ 
ophy,  toward  a  belief  in  the  reality  and  existence  of 
spirit  beings  who  inhabit  an  invisible  world  about  us; 
and  thus  it  required  but  the  suggestion  subsequently 
to  lead  us  to  believe  that  these  invisible  beings  might 
be  disembodied  spirits  of  our  departed  friends  and 
neighbors.  And  this  would  not  seem  altogether  new 
or  unnatural,  since  we  commonly  dream  of  seeing  per¬ 
sons  who  have  long  since  died,  and  we  frequently  hold 


48 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


converse  with  our  departed  friends  in  our  dream  experi¬ 
ences  —  and  thus  it  seems  very  likely  that  the  basic 
psychology  of  spiritualism  had  its  early  suggestion  and 
remote  origin  in  the  phantasies  of  the  dream  life  of  the 
race,  which  were  carried  over  from  time  to  time  into 
a  state  of  consciousness  and  vividly  recalled  to  memory 
at  the  termination  of  the  slumber  period. 

Still  further,  as  we  study  the  subject  of  dreams,  we 
learn  that  as  far  back  as  historic  records  are  accessible, 
there  early  came  into  existence  a  cult  or  priesthood 
who  specialized  in  the  interpretation  of  dreams.  The 
dream  book  is  as  old  as  the  hills.  Every  symbolism, 
every  fancy  and  imagination  of  the  dream  life  was 
supposed  to  have  a  literal  significance,  and  constituted 
an  effort  on  the  part  of  the  invisible  world  to  com¬ 
municate  warnings,  advice  and  information  to  the 
living.  It  is  not  always  clear  just  what  was  the  exact 
philosophy  or  theology  of  this  belief  in  dreams.  That 
is,  as  to  whether  dreams  were  controlled  by  super¬ 
natural  forces,  good  demons,  angels,  or  what  not  — 
who  all  the  while  were  trying  to  make  themselves 
manifest  to  Us  during  the  night  season;  or  whether,  as 
was  the  belief  in  more  recent  times,  it  was  the  spirits 
of  the  dead  and  departed  who  were  trying  to  come 
back,  and  through  the  symbolism  of  the  slumber  season, 
were  trying  to  communicate  superior  wisdom  or  impart 
dire  warnings  to  their  loved  ones. 

Whatever  the  philosophy  of  the  thing  may  be,  in 


Preparing  the  Public  Mind 


49 


the  last  analysis,  the  net  result  of  this  ancient  and  even 
modern  tendency  to  attach  undue  significance  to  our 
dreams  has  been  to  further  the  cause  of  spiritualism  — 
to  strengthen  our  belief  in  the  probability  of  the  exist¬ 
ence  of  spirits,  unseen  personalities  surrounding  us  and 
hovering  about  us  as  we  journey  through  this  vale  of 
tears. 


2.  FUNERAL  SERMONS 

Not  only  is  the  young  and  growing  mind  destined  to 
be  plagued  with  the  problem  of  deciphering  its  dreams, 
and  troubled  with  the  probable  interpretation  thereof; 
but  for  our  second  year  of  high  school  training,  pre¬ 
liminary  to  the  college  course  in  spiritualism,  we  can 
appropriately  consider  the  suggestive  influence  and 
psychologic  impression  made  upon  the  mind  of  an 
adolescent  youth  who,  in  the  course  of  human  events, 
is  sooner  or  later  called  upon  to  attend  an  orthodox 
funeral  service,  and  listen  to  the  conventional  funeral 
sermon.  Now,  I  am  not  making  flippant  criticism  of 
things  religious  or  spiritual.  But  I  feel  it  incumbent 
upon  me  sincerely  and  critically  to  analyze  every  factor 
in  the  preliminary  psychologic  preparation  of  the  minds 
of  men  which  tends  to  ripen  and  prepare  them  for  the 
deception  of  spiritism,  and  therefore,  honesty  requires 
that  we  deal  with  these  things  frankly  and  fearlessly, 
but  kindly  withal. 

I  well  remember  the  first  funeral  sermon  I  ever 


50 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


heard  —  my  readers  will  probably  recall  a  similar  ex¬ 
perience.  What  more  impressive  occasion,  when  in 
the  presence  of  our  beloved  dead,  as  we  listen  to  the 
exhortations  and  admonitions  of  the  shepherd  of  the 
faithful  flock  who  endeavors,  in  his  well-meant  efforts, 
to  utilize  the  occasion  of  sorrow  and  bereavement  and 
the  presence  of  the  dead,  to  impress  upon  those  present 
their  solemn  obligations  to  righteous  conduct  and 
higher  living.  The  clergyman’s  motive  is  above  re¬ 
proach.  He  is  certainly  blameless,  as  regards  any 
conscious  guilt  that  may  attach  to  him  for  the  part  he 
unwittingly  plays  in  furthering  spiritualistic  tendencies, 
and  administering  to  those  human  beliefs  which  con¬ 
stitute  the  background  and  stage  in  front  of  which  and 
upon  which  spiritualism  practices  and  prospers. 

The  sermon  was  given  by  a  very  devout  and  sincere 
clergyman;  but  I  can  vividly  recall  the  refrigerant 
shivers  that  went  up  and  down  my  spine  during  the 
sermon.  Solemn  as  it  was,  impressive  as  it  was  in¬ 
tended  to  be,  I  could  almost  feel  the  spirits  of  the 
departed  relatives  hovering  over  me.  I  was  fearful  to 
look  up  or  to  either  side,  lest  my  eye  should  meet  an 
apparition  from  the  spirit  world. 

Nevertheless,  the  net  result  of  these  popular  funeral 
sermons  is  to  impress  upon  the  young  mind  very 
vividly  and  directly,  and  under  emotional  conditions 
destined  to  make  such  impressions  indelible  and  life¬ 
long  —  I  say,  the  young  mind  at  such  times  and  on 


Preparing  the  Public  Mind 


51 


such  occasions  is  solemnly  taught  that  our  departed 
friends  are  not  in  reality  dead;  but  that  they  have 
passed  on  to  a  greater  sphere;  that  they  have  but 
entered  upon  an  enlarged  existence;  that  even  while 
we  mourn  their  loss  they  are  able  to  look  down  in 
supreme  happiness  from  their  heavenly  place  in  the 
spirit  world,  and  we  are  told  that,  as  they  behold  us, 
they  long  to  comfort  our  sorrow,  and  console  us  in  our 
grief. 

3.  TELEPATHY 

By  the  time  we  reach  the  junior  year  of  high  school 
in  mysticism  and  spiritism,  we  are  ready  to  begin  our 
excursions  into  the  higher  spheres  of  cultism,  and 
among  the  first  of  these  advanced  studies  we  are  usually 
introduced  to  telepathy.  From  early  youth,  we  have 
heard  about  “mind  reading,”  and  the  vast  majority 
of  adults  have  seen  presentations,  on  the  stage,  of 
numerous  stunts  which  purported  to  be  exhibitions  of 
mind  reading.  A  person,  usually  a  woman,  it  will  be 
recalled,  sits  blindfolded  on  the  stage,  while  an  assistant 
goes  through  the  audience  examining  coins,  touching 
objects,  and  otherwise  designating  those  things  which 
the  blindfolded  mind  reader  more  or  less  accurately 
describes,  and  the  general  impression  is  given  to  the 
audience  that  she  is  reading  their  minds,  or  at  least  the 
mind  of  her  working  partner.  There  prevails  at  the 
present  time  a  general  belief  on  the  part  of  the  common 
people,  that  certain  individuals  are  “mind  readers.” 


52 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


It  is  but  a  step  from  this  commonplace  belief  in  the 
existence  of  “mind  readers”  to  the  more  refined  phil¬ 
osophy  of  telepathy.  Telepathy  is  the  alleged  psychic 
ability  to  send  and  to  receive  messages,  independent 
of  the  ordinary  organs  of  sense.  Now,  it  is  plain  that 
if  one  human  being,  a  human  entity,  can  send  through 
the  ether  a  mental  message  to  another  materialistic 
human  being,  by  means  of  telepathy  —  then  even 
material  beings  possess  an  immaterial,  or  at  least  a 
supersensory  mode  of  communication  with  each  other. 

Once  granting  this,  how  easy  it  would  be  to  take  the 
next  step,  and  conceive  that  the  material  mind  might 
be  utilized  merely  as  a  feasible  receiving  or  sending 
aerial  over  which  the  spooks  and  spirits  of  the  invisible 
world  could  initiate  and  register  vibrations  which  could 
be  picked  up  by  those  in  tune  —  en  rapport  —  and  who 
would  thus  be  in  a  position  to  transcribe  these  messages 
of  the  other  world  to  the  open-mouthed  spiritual 
plebeians  of  the  material  world,  much  as  the  wireless 
or  radio  operator  would  receive  the  ticks  and  dashes  of 
the  Morse  code  by  a  wireless  wave  and  then  translate 
them  to  the  “common  herd.” 

And  the  wireless  telegraph  and  telephone,  the  present 
day  popular  radio  craze,  serve  the  purpose  in  many 
minds  of  confirming  their  belief  in  the  fantastic  and 
the  mysterious.  For  they  reason  that  here  is  a  common 
communication  passing  right  through  space  from 
sender  to  receiver,  but  they  overlook  the  fact  that  in 


Preparing  the  Public  Mind 


53 


wireless  and  in  radio  we  are  dealing  with  more  or  less 
well  known  physical  laws,  and  that  they  work  irrespec¬ 
tive  of  person  and  other  human  influences,  being  regu¬ 
lated  by  known  laws  and  favored  or  hindered  by 
known  physical  and  material  conditions. 

4.  THE  OU1JA  BOARD 

As  the  last  grade  of  the  high  school  of  spiritism,  we 
may  consider  the  ouija  board,  that  queer  little  three- 
legged  contrivance,  and  its  table  base,  that  is  regarded 
by  some  earnest  souls  as  being  the  mouthpiece  of 
Satan,  and  by  others  as  being  the  channel  of  Divine 
wisdom  for  God’s  erring  creatures  on  earth. 

We  have  witnessed  a  veritable  ouija  board  craze  in 
the  United  States  in  recent  years.  Drug  store  windows 
and  notion  store  counters  have  exhibited  these  sup¬ 
posed  mediums  of  communication  between  this  world 
and  the  next  in  endless  profusion.  As  a  result  of  all 
the  philosophic  and  psychologic  preparation  and  pre¬ 
liminary  religious  training  which  serve  to  foster  super¬ 
stition  and  favor  deception,  to  which  the  growing  minds 
of  our  boys  and  girls  have  been  subjected,  as  we  have 
heretofore  noted,  the  time  has  now  come  when  they 
are  ripe  to  do  a  little  experimental  work  on  their  own 
account,  and  a  few  pennies  or  some  kind  neighbor,  for 
this  purpose,  will  supply  the  ouija  board.  This  con¬ 
traption,  whose  name  means  “Yes,  yes  Board”  appears 
to  have  got  this  name  by  a  corruption  of  the  words 


54 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


which  are  the  equivalent  of  yes  in  the  French  and 
German  languages. 

My  attention  was  first  directed  to  the  influence  of 
the  ouija  board  several  years  ago,  when  I  was  called 
upon  to  attend  a  highly  nervous,  much  wrought  up 
patient,  an  excitable  woman  who  had  recently  lost  a 
daughter,  her  only  child,  and  who  had  been  experi¬ 
menting  somewhat  with  spirit  mediums,  but  more 
with  the  ouija  board,  and  who,  as  the  result  of  her 
experiments  on  the  frontiers  of  spiritland,  had  become 
unbalanced  —  had,  plainly  speaking,  gone  crazy.  And 
I  have  come  in  contact  with  no  small  number  ofcases 
since  that  day  in  which  the  ouija  board  and  its  associ¬ 
ated  ideas  have  contributed  much  to  the  overthrow  of 
reason  in  the  mind  of  some  soul  predisposed  to  these 
things  by  hereditary  nervous  and  mental  instability. 

Of  course,  I  well  understand  that  many  people  take 
up  the  ouija  board  as  a  diversion,  as  a  means  of  parlor 
amusement.  They  outwardly  proclaim  their  disbelief 
in  the  whole  spiritualistic  proposition,  but  at  the  same 
time  they  overlook  the  fact  that  they  have,  from  the 
earliest  dawn  of  reason,  been  unwittingly  prepared  by 
their  elders,  up  through  a  graduated  and  progressive 
course  of  psychic  training,  which  predisposes  them,  in 
certain  conditions  and  under  favorable  circumstances, 
to  be  unduly  affected  by  these  mystic  and  spiritistic 
influences.  And  so,  while  they  start  out  upon  their 
ouija  experiments  innocently  enough,  and  without  the 


55 


Preparing  the  Public  Mind 

least  conscious  thought  of  seriously  regarding  the 
messages  which  may  by  chance  come  to  them  from  the 
manipulation  of  this  harmless-appearing  little  tripod; 
nevertheless,  credulity,  fear  and  superstition  operate 
with  such  unerring  certainty  and  with  such  inherent 
power,  and  since  they  have  been  so  thoroughly  prepared 
by  a  hundred  and  one  influences,  extending  from  the 
ghost  story  of  their  childhood  days  down  to  the  phil¬ 
osophic  content  of  a  recent  touching  and  solemn  funeral 
sermon,  they  not  infrequently  succumb  to  the  psychic 
treachery  of  this  specious  deception. 

So  we  are  prepared,  in  becoming  expert  and  enthusi¬ 
astic  ouija  disciples,  to  graduate  from  our  high  school 
preparation  for  spiritualism,  and  can  be  considered  now 
full-fledged  candidates,  with  proper  qualifications,  to 
take  up  the  more  advanced  studies  and  adventures 
which  we  shall  next  consider  as  the  college  course  of 
spiritism. 


D.  A  COLLEGE  EDUCATION  IN  SPIRITISM 

We  have  reviewed  the  experiences  of  the  average 
civilized  youth  from  childhood  up  through  the  kinder¬ 
garten  of  spiritism,  the  common  school  of  superstition 
and  credulity,  into  the  years  of  the  adolescent  high 
school  experiences  in  things  occult,  mysterious,  and 
supposedly  supernatural;  and  we  are  now  ready  to 
take  up  the  study  of  what  might  be  called  a  college 
course  in  the  occult.  I  believe  you  will  agree  with  me 


56 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


that  the  pre-college  training  has  been  thorough-going 
and  adequate,  and  that  by  the  time  the  average 
individual  has  reached  the  age  of  young  manhood  or 
young  womanhood,  they  are  quite  thoroughly  grounded 
in  those  essentials  which  are  requisite  for  the  making 
of  a  good  candidate  for  a  college  course  in  spiritism. 

1.  HYPNOTISM 

While,  to  the  psychologist,  hypnotism  is  a  science 
more  or  less  well  understood,  and  one  which  is,  largely 
at  least,  based  upon  the  known  laws  of  psychology  and 
physiology;  nevertheless,  to  the  man  in  the  street, 
hypnotism  has  always  stood  for  the  mysterious,  and 
represents  a  performance  that,  in  the  opinion  of  the 
average  citizen,  borders  on  the  supernatural.  If  you 
are  able  to  hypnotize  your  fellows,  they  are  going  to 
look  upon  you  with  more  or  less  awe,  and  feel  that  you 
are  in  possession  of  powers  entirely  beyond  the  range 
of  the  average  human  being. 

While  it  is  true  that  much  of  the  commercial  hyp¬ 
notism  exhibited  in  public  stage  performances  is  en¬ 
tirely  fraudulent,  and  the  amusing  antics  of  the  subject 
but  represent  the  doings  of  a  confederate  for  pay,  at 
the  same  time,  there  are  to  be  observed  a  sufficient 
number  of  real  demonstrations  of  hypnosis  now  and 
then  to  keep  the  subject  alive  in  the  popular  mind,  and 
to  contribute  directly  to  the  further  confirmation  of  the 
belief  of  mankind  in  the  existence  of  extraordinary 


Preparing  the  Public  Mind 


57 


human  beings  who  are  possessed  of  unusual  powers  and 
who  are  able  to  utilize  their  psychic  gifts  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  exert  this  peculiar  influence  over  their 
fellows.  While  I  distinctly  regard  the  hankering  for 
hypnotism  and  the  undue  interest  in  all  of  these  pseudo¬ 
psychic  sciences  as  an  indication  of  that  state  of  the 
public  mind  which  is  bent  upon  seeking  those  things 
which  are  spectacular  and  supposedly  supernatural,  at 
the  same  time  I  recognize  that  hypnotism  is  unduly 
feared  in  many  circles,  and  I  believe  that  it  has  little 
or  no  value  in  the  treatment  of  ordinary  nervous  dis¬ 
eases. 


2.  CHRISTIAN  SCIENCE  AND  THEOSOPHY 

Many  well-meaning  and  earnest  Christian  Scientists 
will  no  doubt  resent  my  opinion  that  the  practices  and 
dogmas  of  the  cult  tend  indirectly  to  gather  recruits 
for  the  cause  of  spiritualism.  We  do  not  necessarily 
mean  by  this  that  many  who  have  embraced  Christian 
Science  will  in  turn  become  spiritualists.  That  is  not 
always  the  wav  in  which  the  influences  which  make  for 
spiritism  work.  As  we  have  already  seen,  there  are  so 
many  present-day  tendencies  which  unconsciously  pre¬ 
pare  the  minds  of  average  individuals  to  be  favorably 
inclined  toward  spiritism,  while  at  the  same  time  such 
an  object  was  very  far  from  the  intents  and  purposes 
of  those  responsible  for  these  various  agencies  and 
activities  which  constitute  the  conventional  and  ortho- 


58 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


dox  training  of  spiritualistic  candidates.  It  is  not  that 
so  many  Christian  Scientists  are  destined  to  become 
spiritualists,  but  rather  it  is  the  spiritistic  tendency 
of  the  whole  Christian  Science  system  which  exerts  that 
influence  upon  its  immediate  communicants  and  the 
public  in  general,  that  leads  them  to  expect  so  much 
from  exclusive  spirit  agencies. 

The  Christian  Scientists  are  wont  to  deny  the  reality 
of  matter,  the  reality  of  disease,  etc.,  and  they  place 
over-emphasis  upon  the  spirit.  It  is  quite  in  keeping 
with  the  inherent  tendency  of  the  race  to  explain  even 
the  material  manifestations  of  nature  by  ancient  spirit¬ 
istic  theories. 

The  very  fact  that,  let  us  say,  a  million  people  are 
willing  to  believe  that  all  is  spirit  and  nothing  is  matter 
* —  and  I  presume  there  are  many  more  who  lean 
toward  this  sort  of  philosophy  —  this  very  fact  serves 
to  impress  the  subconscious  public  mind  with  the  notion 
that,  after  all,  the  important  thing  in  life  is  spirit  and 
spirit  connections;  that  human  suffering  is  a  figment 
of  mortal  mind;  and  that  evil  and  sorrow  are  but  vain 
imaginations.  Now  there  is  a  psychologic  reflex  from 
all  this  propaganda,  on  the  public  mind,  which  exerts 
a  pernicious  influence  upon  tens  of  thousands  of  indi¬ 
viduals  who  never  become  formal  communicants  of  the 
Christian  Science  cult.  They  frequently  make  a  joking 
remark  about  something  that  has  happened  in  the 
neighborhood,  saying,  “Well,  there  must  be  something 


Preparing  the  Public  Mind 


59 


in  Christian  Science,  after  all,”  and  though  they  never 
join  the  Christian  Science  church  they  are  directly  or 
indirectly  influenced  in  the  belief  that  the  spirit  world 
is  able  to  manipulate  the  material  world;  that  health 
and  disease  of  the  body  are  regulated  by  the  mental 
state  and  controlled  by  spiritual  forces;  and  the  net 
result  of  all  this  psychic  drift  and  mystic  tendency  is 
greatly  to  augment  the  inherent  superstition  and  credul¬ 
ity  of  mankind.  In  other  words,  Christian  Science  and 
Spiritualism  both  thrive  on  the  same  sort  of  human 
curiosity,  that  same  sort  of  willingness  to  accept  as 
true  a  host  of  theological  fallacies  and  unproven  pre¬ 
tensions. 

As  if  Christian  Science  were  not  enough  to  have 
precipitated  upon  the  present  age  in  the  nefarious 
scheme  of  preliminary  spiritistic  preparation,  we  must 
needs  have  a  revival,  in  our  day  and  generation,  of 
theosophy  and  other  Hindu  mysticism  with  all  their 
numerous  phantasms,  ranging  from  the  idealism  of 
Berkleyism  to  the  transmigration  of  the  soul.  And 
these  occult  and  mystic  propagandas  are  cited  in  this 
connection  only  to  complete  the  list  —  to  finish  the 
story  of  the  spiritistic  tendencies  of  modern  times  — 
to  recite  how  things  old  and  new  are  being  utilized 
in  the  culminating  influences  of  the  twentieth  century 
designed  to  enthrall  the  minds  of  men  with  ancient 
superstition,  and  enslave  the  modern  intellect  with  the 
dogmas  and  delusions  of  witchcraft  and  necromanc  /. 


60 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


3.  MIRACLE  SEEKING  —  DIVINE  HEALING 

There  exists  today  the  same  willingness  on  the  part 
of  the  people  to  be  misled  and  deceived  as  was  found 
in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  our  forefathers,  and  the 
power  of  these  modern  humbugs  of  healing  is  found 
to  consist  in  their  ability  apparently  to  cure  disease. 
Having  relieved  physical  pain  and  seemingly  cured 
bodily  disease,  the  teachers  of  these  systems  force  their 
religious  and  ethical  views  upon  their  converts  as  the 
price  of  retaining  healing  and  regaining  health. 

This  is  certainly  the  day  and  generation  of  miracle 
seekers,  as  well  as  thrill  chasers.  The  thoughtless  and 
frivolous  bend  every  energy  and  pursuit  to  diversion 
and  amusement.  The  solemn  and  serious  go  in  quest 
of  the  spectacular  and  unusual  in  theologic  lines  and 
in  occult  circles.  In  the  end  we  are  all  looking  for  the 
same  thing.  We  want  to  be  startled  and  thrilled,  not 
to  mention  amused  and  entertained.  It  is  the  same  old 
inherent  human  curiosity,  the  spirit  of  adventure,  the 
motive  of  the  explorer.  We  have  just  about  explored 
the  entire  face  of  this  planet,  well-nigh  mastered  the 
physical  laws  of  earth,  sea,  and  sky,  and  now  man’s 
inquisitive  nature  must  turn  itself  toward  the  realms 
of  the  invisible  and  the  worlds  of  the  supernatural. 

4.  THE  PSYCHIC  RESEARCH  SOCIETIES 

It  seems  that  modern  civilization  is  passing  through 
a  psychic  age.  The  psychologists  have  unwittingly 


Preparing  the  Public  Mind 


61 


given  a  tremendous  boost  to  the  cause  of  occultism  by 
the  advances  which  they  have  caused  to  be  made  in 
the  psychologic  sciences.  Society  is  beset  on  all  sides 
with  books,  magazine  articles,  and  other  forms  of 
literature,  not  to  mention  popular  lectures,  special 
classes,  etc.,  dealing  with  psychic  themes,  applied  psy¬ 
chology,  mental  efficiency,  new  thought,  mental  science, 
and  so  on,  ad  infinitum. 

The  psychologist  has  been  occupying  the  center  of 
the  scientific  stage  for  some  time,  though  he  is  being 
seriously  crowded  at  the  present  time  by  the  bio¬ 
chemists  with  all  their  recent  lore  respecting  the  endo- 
crines  of  the  ductless  gland  system.  Nevertheless,  the 
psychologist  has  exerted  a  master  influence  over  the 
minds  of  the  public  for  the  past  two  decades,  and  no 
doubt  this  psychic  tendency  of  modern  science  has, 
both  directly  and  indirectly  had  much  to  do  with 
helping  to  focus  the  attention  of  the  public  mind  upon 
the  more  mystic  and  occult  phases  of  psychic  phe¬ 
nomena. 

If  the  human  mind  can  have  such  a  tremendous 
influence  over  health  and  disease,  over  happiness  and 
prosperity,  the  unthinking  individual  reasons,  perhaps 
the  spirits  may  have  a  still  more  powerful  influence. 
A  study  of  true  psychology  would  be  the  surest  pre¬ 
ventative,  the  quickest  cure,  for  spiritualistic  tendency, 
but  the  study  of  a  good  deal  of  this  half-baked  pseudo¬ 
psychology  only  tends  to  foster  superstition  and  increase 


62 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


confidence  in  the  mystic  and  mysterious.  Quack  psy¬ 
chologists  are  in  league  with  the  mediums  of  spiritual¬ 
ism  in  that  they  unconsciously  lead  their  students  and 
followers  away  from  a  recognition  of  natural  law  as 
the  explanation  of  the  phenomena  of  life,  and  lead  them 
unduly  to  lean  toward,  and  depend  upon,  invisible 
psychic  and  fictitious  spiritistic  explanations  to  account 
for  commonplace  experiences,  and  ordinary,  everyday 
phenomena. 

Too  bad  that  we  cannot  have  more  real  psychology 
taught  the  common  people;  that  we  cannot  have  more 
of  it  in  the  schools.  Unfortunate,  indeed,  that  we  do 
not  better  teach  our  boys  and  girls  and  our  college 
students  those  principles  of  psychologic  and  physical 
law  that  would  make  them  largely  immune  to  the 
sophistries  of  spiritism.  But  perhaps  it  is  too  much  to 
expect  that  even  such  a  thorough-going  scientific 
training  could  prevent  certain  psychic  souls  from  being 
attracted  by  the  occult,  since  so  many  men  of  science, 
men  at  least  who  had  a  reputation  for  scientific  ac¬ 
curacy,  have  been  led  to  commit  themselves,  mind, 
soul,  and  body,  to  the  cause  of  spiritism. 

And  now,  if  the  students  of  the  occult  and  the 
“spook  seekers”  have  not  been  able  fully  to  satisfy 
their  longing  for  adventure  in  the  psychic  realms  of 
mysticism;  if  perchance  they  have  to  some  small 
degree  a  scientific  bent  of  mind,  then  they  can  with 
more  dignity  and  some  feeling  of  consistency  turn 


Preparing  the  Public  Mind 


63 


themselves  to  the  more  pretentious  modes  of  investi¬ 
gation  carried  on  by  the  various  societies  for  psychic 
research.  At  least  these  organizations  go  through  the 
form  of  investigating  spiritistic  phenomena,  and  they 
have  contributed  a  great  deal,  among  the  more  intelli¬ 
gent  circles,  the  better  educated  classes,  to  stimulate 
an  interest  in  psychic  affairs  and  directly  promote  the 
cause  of  spiritism. 

While  these  societies  for  psychic  research  have  done 
much  to  eliminate  the  more  palpable  frauds,  they  have 
at  the  same  time,  performed  a  valuable  service  to  the 
spiritists,  in  that  they  have  served  the  purpose  enor¬ 
mously  to  advertise  the  more  pretentious  and  high 
class  mediums.  As  one  encyclopedia  says,  ‘‘Its  work 
has  tended  to  put  limits  to  the  claims  which  have  been 
made  for  communication  with  the  discarnate,  though 
it  has  at  the  same  time  tended  to  strengthen  the  belief 
by  giving  it  better  scientific  credentials  than  it  has 
heretofore  possessed.”  In  other  words,  the  society  for 
psychic  research  has  sought  to  prove  itself  a  sort  of 
Dun  and  Bradstreet  for  the  whole  spiritistic  movement, 
giving  the  laymen,  as  it  were,  a  sort  of  psychic  rating 
on  the  various  classes  of  mediums  and  pseudo-mediums. 

And  so,  as  we  wind  up  our  study  in  this,  what  we 
have  for  the  sake  of  comparison  denominated  the 
senior  year  in  our  college  course  in  spiritism,  we  see 
that  we  have  had  a  progressive  training  in  mysticism, 
credulity  and  superstition,  from  the  early  years  and 


64 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


ghost  story  frights  of  childhood,  up  through  the  quest 
of  the  mysterious  and  the  seeking  of  the  supernatural 
by  means  of  fortune  tellers,  clairvoyants  and  the  ouija 
board,  to  our  actual  contact  with  trance  mediums, 
tongues,  and  the  apparent  demonstration  of  the  ability 
to  heal  disease  in  answer  to  prayer  and  the  touch  of 
those  who  are  supposed  to  be  representatives  of  divine 
forces. 

And  now  what  is  the  net  result  of  all  this?  Simply 
to  lead  the  minds  of  men  away  from  natural  law  and 
the  true  explanation  of  the  life  phenomena  of  this 
planet.  To  lead  honest  minds  away  from  a  settled 
and  established  belief  in  the  orderly  procedure  of  affairs 
in  our  world  and  from  the  fact  that,  commonly  speak¬ 
ing,  matters  of  health  and  disease,  happiness  and  pros¬ 
perity  are  dominated  and  controlled  by  a  reign  of 
natural  law.  The  net  result  of  all  our  repeated  excur¬ 
sions  into  the  occult,  and  our  tampering  with  the 
mystic,  is  to  make  of  us  potential  spiritualists  —  to 
educate  men  and  women  to  look  to  and  depend  upon, 
the  unseen  for  information,  comfort,  and  consolation; 
and  to  seek  to  obtain  by  unearned  and  short-cut  extra¬ 
human  methods,  wisdom,  information  and  skill. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  MODERN  SPIRITUALISTIC  MOVEMENT 


MY  RESExARCHES  have  led  me  to  believe  that 
the  modern  cult  of  spiritualism,  as  we  understand 
it  and  recognize  it  today,  really  had  its  origin  with  the 
teaching  and  doctrines  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg  (1688- 
1772).  Swedenborg  was  a  physiologist  of  more  or  less 
note,  who  lived  in  Stockholm.  His  first  published 
works  dealing  with  philosophy  and  theology  appeared 
in  1734,  and  it  was  about  at  this  time  that  he  began 
his  extensive  researches  in  physiology  and  anatomy 
for  the  purpose  of  locating  the  human  soul,  and  he 
published  numerous  works  dealing  with  his  researches 
along  this  line.  He  claims  to  have  had  Divine  revela¬ 
tions  in  which  were  revealed  to  him  the  philosophy  of 
the  spiritual  world,  and  he  published  numerous  works 
containing  these  alleged  revelations. 


1.  THE  FOX  SISTERS 

While  it  is  probably  true  that  Swedenborg  was  the 
father  of  modern  spiritualism,  American  spiritualism, 
as  a  spectacular  phenomenon,  seems  to  have  had  its 
origin  in  Hydeville,  near  Rochester,  New  York,  in  1848. 
Near  this  little  village  there  lived  a  farmer  by  the  name 


65 


66 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


of  John  D.  Fox.  He  had  a  family  of  six  children,  two 
of  whom  (daughters)  were  living  at  home.  It  seems 
that  the  Fox  family,  who  had  but  recently  moved  into 
this  home,  were  early  disturbed  by  peculiar  nocturnal 
noises.  These  strange  sounds  were  attributed  to  rats 
and  mice,  loose  boards,  and  what  not,  but  ere  long  it 
appeared  that  these  noises  were  more  or  less  system¬ 
atized,  and  so  it  is  recorded  that  on  the  night  of  March 
1,  1848,  when  the  parents  and  the  two  daughters  had 
gone  to  bed  in  the  same  room,  these  noises,  or  as  they 
were  later  called,  “rappings,  ”  became  unusually  vio¬ 
lent.  It  would  seem  that  Mrs.  Fox  became  inordinately 
interested  in  these  phenomena,  and  she  embarked  upon 
a  program  of  further  acquaintance  and  experimentation 
with  this  strange  force  or  intelligence  which  had  so 
unceremoniously  invaded  her  quiet  and  unpretentious 
home.  According  to  report,  it  seems  that  Mrs.  Fox 
succeeded  in  eliciting  the  information  that  these  rap¬ 
ping  forces  purported  to  be  the  spirit  of  a  dead  man  by 
the  name  of  Charles  B.  Rosma,  and  as  time  went  on 
the  spirit  communicated  to  Mrs.  Fox  the  information 
that  this  man  Rosma  had  been  murdered  several  years 
before  in  the  house  in  which  these  manifestations  were 
taking  place. 

By  this  time  the  other  members  of  the  Fox  family 
had  resumed  interest  in  these  manifestations,  and  for 
miles  around  the  news  of  the  “rapping  spirits”  and  the 
Fox  sisters  had  spread,  and  as  time  went  by  many  mes- 


The  Modern  Movement 


67 


sages  were  received  from  what  purported  to  be  this 
dead  man  Rosma’s  spirit  returned  to  the  scene  of  his 
murder.  It  is  claimed  that  many  of  these  messages 
were  verified,  and  Margaret  Fox  began  to  develop  very 
extraordinary  occult  ability  as  time  went  on,  and  many 
remarkable  seances  were  held  by  her  with  the  rapping 
spirits.  Scores  of  people  who  attended  these  seances 
were  led  to  believe  that  the  Fox  girls  were  really  in 
communication  with  the  spirits  of  dead  and  departed 
souls.  These  raps  were  always  clearly  associated  with 
the  two  daughters,  Margaret  (aged  fifteen)  and  Kate 
or  Cathie  (aged  twelve).  A  third,  a  married  elder  sister, 
named  Leah  —  at  that  time  Mrs.  Fish,  and  later  Mrs. 
Underhill  —  came  to  Hydeville,  and,  on  her  return  to 
Rochester,  took  Margaret  with  her.  Leah  herself  was 
presently  a  “medium.”  The  excitement  in  the  neigh¬ 
borhood  was  intense.  Throughout  the  whole  country 
mediums  sprang  up  on  every  side,  and  the  Foxes 
were  in  such  demand  that  they  could  soon  charge  a 
dollar  a  sitter.  The  “spirits,”  having  at  last  dis¬ 
covered  a  way  of  communicating  with  the  living, 
rapped  out  all  sorts  of  messages  to  the  sitters. 

2.  SPIRITUALISM  IN  AMERICA 

As  near  as  I  can  ascertain,  the  concrete,  organized, 
spiritualistic  movement  in  the  United  States  had  its 
origin  and  spread  from  this  New  York  episode.  Spirit¬ 
ualism,  it  should  be  known,  is  similar  to  socialism,  in 


68 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


that  there  are  many  ramifications  and  branches  of  the 
cult,  while  there  are  tens  of  thousands  who  believe  in 
its  essential  tenets  who  are  not  formal  communicants 
of  the  organized  movement.  Later  on,  the  phenomena 
of  spiritualism  were  so  enlarged  as  to  include  such 
stunts  as  table  tipping,  slate  writing,  and  subsequently 
to  the  actual  materialization  of  alleged  spirit  entities. 

So  the  real  pioneer  of  American  commercial  mediums 
was  Leah,  (Mrs.  Underhill),  the  eldest  of  the  three  Fox 
sisters  wrho  virtually  founded  American  Spiritualism. 
She  was  an  expert  in  fraud  and  a  woman  of  business. 
Until  her  own  sisters  gave  her  away,  forty  years  after 
the  beginning  of  the  movement,  she  was  never  exposed; 
and  even  an  exposure  by  her  sister  in  the  public  press 
and  on  the  public  stage  in  New  York  made  no  difference 
in  her  carrer.  She  was  the  Mme.  Blavatsky,  the  Mrs. 
Eddy,  of  Spiritualism.  In  1869  she  first  produced 
'‘Ghosts”  at  her  sittings.  Her  sister  Katie  (so  Katie 
later  confirmed)  impersonated  the  dead  wife  of  a  New 
York  banker. 

Confession  of  the  Fox  Sisters.  Margaret  Fox  married 
Captain  Kane,  the  Arctic  explorer,  who  often  urged 
her  to  expose  the  fraud,  as  he  believed  it  to  be.  In 
1888  she  found  courage  to  do  so.  ( New  York  Herald , 
September  24,  1888.)  She  and  Katie,  she  said,  had 
discovered  a  power  of  making  raps  with  their  toe- 
joints,  and  had  hoaxed  Hydeville.  Their  enterprising 
elder  sister  had  learned  their  secret,  and  had  organized 


The  Modem  Movement 


69 


the  very  profitable  business  of  spirit-rapping.  The  raps 
and  other  phenomena  of  the  Spiritualist  movement 
were,  Mrs.  Kane  said,  fraud  from  beginning  to  end. 
She  gave  public  demonstrations  in  New  York  of  the 
way  it  was  done;  and  in  October  of  the  same  year  her 
younger  sister  Cathie  confirmed  the  statement,  and 
said  that  Spiritualism  was  “all  humbuggery,  every  bit 
of  it”  ( Herald ,  October  10  and  11,  1888).  They 
agreed  that  their  sister  Leah,  (Mrs.  Underhill),  the 
founder  of  the  Spiritualist  movement  and  the  most 
prosperous  medium  of  its  palmiest  days,  was  a  monu¬ 
mental  liar  and  a  shameless  organizer  of  every  variety 
of  fraud.  That  a  wealthy  Spiritualist  afterwards  in¬ 
duced  Cathie  to  go  back  on  this  confession  need  not 
surprise  us. 


3.  SPIRITUALISM  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN 

Spiritualism,  in  its  earlier  history  in  England,  was 
given  a  great  impetus  by  one  Mr.  F.  W.  H.  Myers, 
who  took  it  upon  himself,  in  connection  with  the 
Psychical  Research  Society,  to  collect  together  evi¬ 
dences  of  moving  objects,  noises,  lights,  etc.,  in  con¬ 
nection  with  spirit  seances.  It  was  he  that  reported 
the  famous  Armstrong  case  where  the  tables  pranced 
about  and  on  one  occasion  came  down  with  such 
destructive  force  that  the  legs  were  broken.  He  also 
gave  publicity  to  extraordinary  bell-ringing,  and  other 
stunts  which  were  supposed  to  be  of  spirit  origin. 


70 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


It  should  be  stated  that,  as  far  back  as  1874,  Sir 
William  Crookes  became  attracted  to  spiritualism  and 
read  papers  and  made  many  addresses  concerning  his 
experiences  with  alleged  mediums.  His  interest  in  the 
movement  considerably  anti-dated  that  of  Sir  Oliver 
Lodge. 


4.  HOME  - THE  PATRON  SAINT  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

D.  D.  Home  seems  to  have  been  the  central  character 
around  which  spiritualism  in  Great  Britain  had  its 
origin  some  fifty  or  sixty  years  ago,  and  Sir  A.  Conan 
Doyle  elevated  him  to  the  pedestal  of  the  Patron  Saint 
of  Modern  Spiritualism. 

Home  was  born  near  Edinburgh  in  1833,  of  a  Scottish 
family  that  is  reputed  to  have  had  a  traditional  “second 
sight”  as  a  part  of  its  heredity.  Home’s  mother  is 
supposed  to  have  been  a  sort  of  clairvoyant,  or  to  have 
been  otherwise  endowed  with  second  sight.  He  was  a 
delicate  child,  of  highly  nervous  temperament.  He 
was  raised  by  an  aunt,  who,  when  he  was  nine  years  of 
age,  immigrated  to  America. 

Home’s  spiritualistic  experience  seems  to  have  had 
its  origin  in  1845,  when  he  and  a  young  companion  were 
out  in  the  woods  reciting  a  ghost  story,  and  they  agreed 
between  themselves  that  whichever  one  should  die  first 
he  would  subsequently  reappear  to  the  surviving  mem¬ 
ber  of  the  duet.  They  were  soon  separated  by  Edwin’s 
parents  moving  away,  and  Home,  a  few  months  after- 


The  Modern  Movement 


71 


wards,  is  reported  to  have  had  a  vision  one  evening, 
shortly  after  retiring,  after  which  he  said  to  the  family: 
“I  have  seen  Edwin.  He  died  three  days  ago.”  And 
two  or  three  days  afterward  word  was  received  an¬ 
nouncing  the  death  of  his  companion. 

From  now  on  ensue  a  succession  of  marvelous  events, 
demonstrations,  etc.,  much  to  the  displeasure  of  his 
aunt,  who  was  a  member  of  the  Church  of  Scotland, 
and  who  opposed  her  nephew’s  Wesleyan  connections 
so  much  that  he  finally  joined  the  Congregationalists 
as  a  compromise.  These  events,  it  should  be  borne  in 
mind,  are  occurring  about  two  years  after  the  famous 
knockings  of  the  Fox  sisters  at  Rochester  had  attracted 
so  much  attention. 

It  would  seem  that  Home,  after  all,  created  much 
more  of  a  stir  in  England  than  he  had  in  America. 
There  were  no  Fox  sisters  there  to  share  attention 
with  him.  He  was  the  whole  show  in  Great  Britain. 
The  best  of  society  took  an  interest  in  Home’s  manifes¬ 
tations;  earls,  lords,  and  what  not  became  his  patrons, 
and  while  Home  does  not  seem  to  have  sought  to  com¬ 
mercialize  the  immediate  seance,  it  is  evident  that  he 
received  liberal  support  from  numerous  sources.  It 
would  require  a  book  twice  the  size  of  this  little  volume 
to  reproduce  all  the  letters  from  prominent  people  who 
were  willing  to  swear  to  the  remarkable  things  they 
saw  at  the  seances  conducted  by  Home  from  time  to 
time.  In  the  years  that  followed.  Home  visited  Italy, 


72 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


France,  and  Russia,  where  he  conducted  many  seances, 
and  became  a  fast  friend  of  Alexis  Tolstoi. 

From  1859  to  1861  he  seems  to  have  been  back  and 
forth  between  the  continent  and  England,  holding 
seances  for  the  highest  society  and  royalty,  and  it  was 
about  this  time  that  the  scientist,  Faraday,  contem¬ 
plated  an  investigation,  but  it  seems  that  his  conditions 
were  not  altogether  acceptable  to  the  medium  and  so 
the  test  never  came  off.  By  1860  a  number  of  influ¬ 
ential  converts  to  spiritualism  had  been  made  in  Eng¬ 
land. 

In  London  Home  met  Mrs.  Lyon,  who  subsequently 
took  a  fancy  to  him,  adopted  him  —  he  changing  his 
name  to  Home-Lyon  —  and  settled  upon  him  twenty- 
five  or  thirty  thousand  pounds  at  first,  and  subse¬ 
quently  another  thirty  thousand  pounds,  all  of  which 
ended  in  a  lawsuit  which  detracted  much  from  Home’s 
popularity,  as  Mrs.  Lyon  claimed  that  the  money  was 
extracted  from  her  under  spiritualistic  influence.  She 
claimed  that  her  deceased  husband’s  spirit,  speaking 
through  Home  as  a  medium,  directed  that  she  give  this 
money  to  Home.  The  courts  decided  against  Home, 
and  ordered  the  money  returned  to  Mrs.  Lyon. 

It  seems  that  in  the  later  years  of  Home’s  life  he 
received  the  majority  of  his  communications  in  a  state 
of  trance.  Home  died  of  his  lung  trouble  and  other 
affections  on  June  2,  1886. 

The  careful  study  of  Home’s  life  and  the  perusal  of 


The  Modern  Movement 


73 


his  writings  suggests  that  there  is  indeed  a  great  pau¬ 
city  of  “leading  lights in  the  modern  spiritistic  move¬ 
ment  —  or  else  the  present  day  sponsors  for  this  new 
religion  would  hardly  settle  upon  such  a  character  as 
Home  for  its  Patron  Saint.  His  whole  career  was 
“fishy”  from  first  to  last;  though  notwithstanding  the 
unsavory  lawsuit  and  the  adverse  judgment  of  the 
British  courts,  directing  him  to  return  the  fortune  he 
had  secured  from  Mrs.  Lyon  under  the  guise  of  spirit 
messages  from  her  dead  husband  —  notwithstanding 
the  utter  preposterousness  of  the  impossible  claims  and 
assertions  of  Home  —  his  fanatical  followers  believed 
in  him  to  the  end,  and  today  they  would  commemo¬ 
rate  him,  in  the  words  of  Doyle,  as  “the  basis  of  the 
true  modern  spiritualism.” 

5.  REV.  STAINTON  MOSES 

About  the  time  that  Home  was  in  vogue  in  England, 
the  Rev.  Stainton  Moses  was  occupying  the  center  of 
the  stage  in  America.  Reverend  Moses  seems,  like 
Home,  to  have  made  little  attempt  to  commercialize 
his  seances,  but  he  was  one  of  the  earlier  and  more  pre¬ 
tentious  advocates  of  spiritualism  in  America.  The 
seances  of  Reverend  Moses  are  said  to  have  been  par¬ 
ticularly  characterized  by  whispering  voices  in  the 
magic  circle,  as  well  as  by  numerous  lights  which  ap¬ 
peared  from  time  to  time.  The  voices  are  reported  to 
have  sometimes,  blended  into  a  quartet  or  a  choir  which 


74 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


could  be  heard  in  gentle  meter  as  if  the  music  were  be¬ 
ing  wafted  to  the  hearers  from  a  considerable  distance. 
Of  course,  these  manifestations  always  took  place  in  a 
perfectly  dark  room.  The  majority  of  the  seances  of 
the  Reverend  Moses  were  conducted  for  his  friend, 
Doctor  Spear. 

Like  Home,  the  friends  of  Moses  claim  that  he  was 
frequently  lifted  off  the  ground,  or  that  he  told  them  of 
experiences  in  which  he  had  been  levitated.  So-called 
‘Tappings”  were  often  associated  with  this  medium, 
but  his  chief  spirit  pursuit  seemed  to  pertain  to  auto¬ 
matic  writing.  From  his  hand,  by  automatic  writing, 
there  would  ensue  a  flood  of  elevating  and  interesting, 
but  always  more  or  less  inaccurate,  material.  As  pre¬ 
viously  noted,  lights  were  frequently  seen  floating  about 
the  room,  and  on  one  occasion  the  medium  was  so  un¬ 
fortunate  as  to  drop  and  break  a  bottle  of  phosphorus 
whose  fumes  soon  penetrated  the  whole  atmosphere  of 
the  darkened  seance  room. 

6.  LATER  SPIRITUALISTIC  LIGHTS 

During  the  half  century  that  spiritualism  has  been 
masquerading  in  this  country  and  Great  Britain,  a 
vast  number  of  leading  lights  have  come  and  gone. 
Among  this  number  may  be  mentioned: 

The  Case  of  Mrs.  Fay.  A  few  years  back  the  world 
was  entranced  by  the  astonishing  seances  of  Mme.  Fay. 
In  her  performances,  she  was  always  accompanied  by 


The  Modem  Movement 


75 


her  husband,  the  Colonel,  and  she  practiced  and  pros¬ 
pered  until  one  time  an  accident  occurred  in  one  of  her 
performances  which  was  attended  by  Mr.  Podmore, 
and  he  made  the  discovery  of  just  how  she  liberated 
herself.  She  had  perfected  a  method  of  fastening  the 
tapes  that  bound  her  hands  together,  so  that  she  could 
liberate  herself  at  will  and  carry  on  the  numerous 
stunts,  all  of  which,  of  course,  were  done  in  a  perfectly 
dark  room.  A  London  Museum  proprietor  also  subse¬ 
quently  exposed  Mrs.  Fay,  and  her  income  as  a 
medium  was  so  reduced  that  she  offered,  by  letter,  to 
go  on  his  stage,  for  a  fee,  and  show  how  all  of  her 
tricks  and  those  of  other  mediums  were  done.  This 
sort  of  thing  becomes  a  real  tragedy  when  we  come  to 
think  that  by  this  time  she  had  been  the  means  of  con¬ 
verting  hundreds,  if  not  thousands,  to  the  cause  of 
spiritualism  and  influencing  them  to  become  devout 
believers  in  the  supernatural. 

The  Interesting  Mrs .  Piper.  Mrs.  Piper  is  probably 
one  of  the  most  interesting  specimens  of  mediumship 
that  ever  attracted  attention  in  America,  or  who  was 
ever  investigated  by  anything  like  w’hat  could  purport 
to  be  a  scientific  commission.  Mrs.  Piper  was  even 
able  to  take  in  the  shrewd  and  critical  Mr.  Podmore; 
although  Podmore  would  not  accept  the  hypothesis  of 
“spooks’’  or  “spirits,”  he  was  disposed  to  grant  the 
genuineness  of  some  of  her  performances  and  to  ex¬ 
plain  them  on  the  hypothesis  of  telepathy.  He  resorted 


76 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


to  the  theory  that  it  was  Mrs.  Piper's  subconscious  self 
that  thinks  and  creates  these  spiritual  beings,  and  that 
she  elicits  communications  from  her  sitters  by  making 
telepathic  contact  with  their  respective  minds. 

Now  when  we  are  discussing  Mrs.  Piper,  the  reader 
should  bear  in  mind  that  we  are  considering  a  woman 
who  was  regarded  as  the  “  greatest  clairvoyant  in  the 
history  of  the  movement’'  and  that  she  was  endorsed 
by  Doctor  Hodgson  and  his  American  Society  for 
Psychic  Research;  and  that  she  was  further  endorsed 
by  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  and  the  leading  British  lights  in 
the  firmament  of  spiritism.  But  Mrs.  Piper  always  fell 
down  when  it  came  to  the  actual  test  —  when  it  came 
to  “brass  tacks,”  in  the  language  of  slang.  Her  spook, 
Phinuit,  who  could  communicate  so  much  through  Mrs. 
Piper  to  the  investigators,  on  subjects  of  a  general 
nature,  could  not  give  a  sane  or  connected  account  of 
his  own  life  on  earth,  or  give  a  plausible  reason  why  he 
should  forget  the  medical  facts  and  knowledge  which 
he  had  possessed  when  in  the  flesh. 

When  Myers,  the  renowned  English  investigator  and 
writer  on  spiritism,  died  in  1901,  and  left  a  sealed  enve¬ 
lope  containing  a  test  message,  Mrs.  Piper  could  not 
get  through  to  the  investigators  a  single  word  of  this 
message.  When  her  long  time  sponsor,  Hodgson,  died 
in  1905  he  left  behind  a  large  amount  of  manuscript  in 
cipher,  but  Mrs.  Piper  was  unable  to  catch  the  least 
clew  to  his  writings  and  this  experiment  added  but 


The  Modem  Movement 


77 


another  to  the  long  list  of  dismal  failures  to  make  good 
under  real  test  conditions.  Even  when  she  claimed  to 
have  called  up  Professor  Hodgson  from  the  grave,  when 
his  friends  put  test  questions  to  her,  or  to  what  pur¬ 
ported  to  be  his  spirit  speaking  through  Mrs.  Piper  as 
a  medium,  about  his  early  life  in  Australia,  her  answers 
were  all  consistently  wrong. 

She  was  completely  baffled  when  a  message  was 
given  to  her  in  Latin,  though  she  was  supposed  to  be 
speaking  in  the  name  of  the  spirit  of  the  learned  Myers, 
and  it  took  her  three  months  to  get  the  meaning  (out  of 
a  dictionary?)  of  one  or  two  easy  words  of  it.  She  gave 
a  man  a  long  account  of  an  uncle  whom  he  never  had; 
and  it  turned  out  that  this  information  was  in  the  En¬ 
cyclopedia,  and  related  to  another  man  of  the  same 
name.  In  no  instance  did  she  ever  give  details  that  it 
was  impossible  for  her  to  learn  in  a  normal  way,  and 
it  is  for  her  admirers  to  prove  that  she  did  not  learn 
them  in  a  normal  way,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  to  give 
a  more  plausible  explanation  of  what  Doctor  Maxwell, 
their  great  authority,  calls  her  “inaccuracies  and 
falsehoods.” 

The  Famous  Bangs  Sisters.  Among  the  most  inter¬ 
esting  of  the  physical-manifestation  mediums  of  the 
recent  past  were  the  Bangs  Sisters  of  Chicago,  whom  I 
have  seen  operate  very  many  times.  They  were  the 
same  Misses  Bangs  who  painted  spirit  pictures  right 
before  the  eyes  of  their  sitters.  And  many  of  their 


78 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


methods,  it  must  be  confessed,  were  very  difficult  to 
detect  and  expose. 

These  interesting  maiden  ladies  continued  their  work 
of  deceiving  the  public  —  and  they  were  very  clever  at 
it  —  until  they  were  finally  rounded  up  by  the  Chicago 
police  and  their  profitable  business  was  brought  to 
an  end. 

Sooner  or  later,  it  seems,  the  most  brilliant  mediums 
are  detected;  and  this  same  thing  occurred  in  the  case 
of  the  famous  Mrs.  Wriedt,  the  British  medium  who 
flourished  in  England,  but  who  was  caught  in  Norway. 

And  so  the  Rev.  Frederick  Wiggin  was  able  to  put 
many  things  over,  but  when  he  got  up  against  the 
shrewd  Doctor  Funk,  the  wires  got  crossed  and  he  got 
Doctor  Funk’s  mother’s  death  mixed  up  and  attrib¬ 
uted  it  to  his  wife. 

The  Classic  Palladino.  Not  many  years  ago,  they 
Drought  to  America  the  classic  medium  of  continental 
Europe,  Eusapia  Palladino.  She  was  not  the  common 
garden  variety  of  medium,  but  the  real  thing.  You  all 
know  how  she  came,  heralded,  to  this  country;  how 
this  Italian  working  girl,  with  no  education,  the 
daughter  of  a  shopkeeper  in  Naples,  held  the  attention 
of  scientists  and  investigators,  and  how  she  earned  for¬ 
tunes  through  her  profession.  And  you  will  recall  how 
the  late  Professor  Hugo  Munsterberg  and  his  assistants 
trapped  her  in  this  country.  In  the  midst  of  her  won¬ 
derful  performance,  she  uttered  an  outlandish  scream. 


The  Modem  Movement 


79 


The  seance  was  suddenly  terminated.  One  of  Pro¬ 
fessor  Munsterberg’s  assistants  had  crawled  along  on 
the  floor,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  performance  had 
seized  the  medium’s  leg.  She  was  carrying  on  her  won¬ 
derful  performance  by  means  of  the  dexterous  use  of 
her  toes,  handling  instruments,  and  causing  the  rest  of 
the  phenomena  associated  with  her  seance. 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  investigators  and 
observers  of  Eusapia  were  not  allowed  to  put  a  foot  on 
her  right  foot  because  of  the  fact  that  she  claimed  that 
that  foot  was  “afflicted  with  a  painful  corn.”  At  the 
same  time  we  should  remember  that  one  of  her  hands 
must  not  be  clasped  by  the  investigator  because  of  the 
further  fact  that  she  “was  acutely  sensitive  to  pain  in 
that  hand.”  Under  no  circumstances  would  this  fa¬ 
mous  medium  ever  allow  a  man  to  stand  near  her  with 
nothing  to  do  but  intently  observe  her  performances. 
It  would  seem  that  she  was  able  to  release  her  hands  and 
feet  from  almost  any  ordinary  control  by  means  of  her 
constant  wriggling  and  squirming. 

One  of  the  early  frauds  Eusapia  was  detected  in  was 
effected  by  means  of  an  investigator  who  sneaked  in  a 
camera  and  took  an  exposure  of  the  levitation  of  a 
stool  high  in  the  air.  When  the  photograph  was 
developed  it  was  plain  to  be  seen  that  the  stool  was  rest¬ 
ing  on  the  medium’s  head.  From  that  time  on  she 
developed  a  peculiar  phobia  for  photographers  or  anyone 
carrying  anything  that  in  the  least  resembled  a  camera 


80 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


of  any  size. 

Slade ,  The  Slate-Writer .  Truesdell  undertook  a  se¬ 
rious  investigation  of  Slade.  Having  paid  the  cus¬ 
tomary  five  dollars,  he  received  a  number  of  interesting 
and  pretty  messages  purporting  to  be  of  spirit  origin, 
but  wholly  unsatisfactory  and  unconvincing  to  the 
investigator.  He  soon  discovered  that  the  supposed 
spirit  touches  on  his  arm  were  executed  by  Slade’s 
foot.  He  concluded  that  they  were  performed  in  order 
to  divert  his  attention  away  from  being  too  closely 
concentrated  on  the  slate-trick. 

The  main  theme  of  the  messages  which  most  sitters 
received  on  Slade’s  trick-slates  was  in  the  nature  of  an 
exhortation  to  persevere  in  the  investigation  of  things 
spiritual,  and  of  course  this  meant  —  although  not 
directly  implied  —  that  the  investigator  would  pay  the 
medium,  Slade,  five  dollars  a  sitting.  How  else  could 
these  investigations  be  suitably  or  successfully  car¬ 
ried  on? 

Truesdell  tells  of  a  subsequent  visit  to  Slade  at 
which  time  he  left  a  misleading  letter  in  his  overcoat 
pocket  out  in  Slade’s  hall,  and  subsequently  found 
that  the  all-wise  spirits  assumed  that  he  was  “Samuel 
Johnson,  Rome,  New  York.”  But  before  the  medium 
had  entered  the  seance  room,  and  while  he  was  pre¬ 
sumably  out  in  the  hall,  going  through  the  investi¬ 
gator’s  ove:g:oat  pockets,  Truesdell  rapidly  overhauled 
Slade’s  room.  He  found  a  slate  containing  a  carefully 


The  Modem  Movement 


81 


prepared  and  pious  message,  purporting  to  come  from 
the  spirits,  already  written  and  signed,  as  wras  Slade’s 
custom,  with  the  name  of  his  dead  wife,  Alcinda.  Di¬ 
rectly  underneath  this  message  on  the  slate  Truesdell 
wrote:  “Henry,  look  out  for  this  fellow  —  he  is  up  to 
snuff!  Alcinda.”  Then  he  carefully  replaced  the  slate, 
leaving  everything  exactly  as  he  found  it.  Presently 
Slade  came  into  the  room  and  gave  a  most  dramatic 
performance,  during  which  he  indulged  in  numerous 
contortions,  and  under  the  apparent  influence  of  in¬ 
visible  spirits  he  gradually  drew  the  small  table  on 
which  his  slates  rested  nearer  and  nearer  the  location 
of  the  hidden  slate,  whereupon  he  “accidentally” 
knocked  the  clean  slate,  which  was  about  to  be  used 
for  test  purposes,  off  the  table.  This  of  course  was 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  ruse  to  give  him  an  excuse 
for  picking  up  the  prepared  slate,  which  by  this  time 
was  near  at  hand.  The  reader  can  easily  imagine 
what  Slade’s  emotions  must  have  been  when  he  read 
the  words  which  Truesdell  had  written  on  the  slate 
underneath  his  message  but  a  few  minutes  previously. 
However,  the  medium  soon  overcame  his  embarrass¬ 
ment  and  after  a  little  confusion  he  “laughingly  ac¬ 
knowledged  that  he  was  a  mere  conjuror,”  and  told 
the  investigator  who  had  outwitted  him  about  many 
of  the  tricks  of  his  profession.  He  was  many  times  ar¬ 
rested  and  exposed  in  both  this  country  and  in  England. 

The  Seybert  Commission  Findings .  Henry  Seybert 


82 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


bequeathed  funds  to  be  used  by  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania  in  the  scientific  study  of  the  phenomena 
of  spiritualism.  A  committee,  consisting  of  ten  emi¬ 
nent  men,  made  a  thorough-going  investigation  of 
slate  writing,  trance  mediums,  and  other  mediumistic 
phenomena,  and  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  whole 
sordid  mess  was  fraudulent.  They  caught  their  me¬ 
diums  again  and  again  in  cheating,  and  by  means  of 
mirrors  and  other  devices  were  able  to  detect  the  de¬ 
ceptive  methods  practiced  by  the  mediums.  And  sub¬ 
sequent  investigations  have  confirmed  the  findings  of 
the  Philadelphia  investigation.  The  Seybert  Commis¬ 
sion  in  its  report  says:  “An  eminent  professional  jug¬ 
gler  performed,  in  the  presence  of  our  commission, 
some  independent  slate  writing  far  more  remarkable 
than  any  we  have  witnessed  with  mediums.” 

And  so  no  matter  whether  the  investigation  is  con¬ 
ducted  by  University  Professors  or  by  the  Scientific 
American — so  far,  at  any  rate,  the  mediums  have  all 
turned  out  to  be  cheats  —  they  have  all  been  detected 
in  fraud. 


CHAPTER  IV 

PHYSICAL  PHENOMENA  OF  SPIRITUALISM 


THE  trail  of  modern  spiritualism,  since  its  inception 
at  Hydeville  three-quarters  of  a  century  ago,  is 
strewn  with  the  spectacle  of  the  rise  and  downfall  of  a 
succession  of  “marvelous  mediums. ”  One  by  one 
these  unique  personalities  have  moved  into  the  lime¬ 
light  of  public  interest,  only  sooner  or  later  to  be  caught 
cheating  and  to  be  in  their  turn  detected  in  fraud. 
Again  and  again  have  the  faithful  believers  been  forced 
to  view  the  downfall  of  their  favorite  medium  —  their 
chosen  idol. 

Of  course,  it  is  explained  by  the  “pillars”  of  the 
spiritualistic  faith  that  even  good  mediums,  some¬ 
times,  in  their  effort  to  secure  bread  and  butter  —  in 
their  desire  to  cater  to  the  insatiable  desire  of  the  public 
for  “manifestations,”  succumb  to  the  temptation  to 
cheat,  to  practice  fraud  in  some  minor  direction;  but 
it  is  affirmed  that  over  and  above  all  this  fraudulent 
element  many  of  these  mediums  are  real  channels  of 
communication  between  the  living  and  the  dead. 

Since  the  early  phenomena  of  rapping  spirits  —  or 
the  snapping  toes  of  Margaret  Fox  —  spiritistic  phe¬ 
nomena  embracing  a  series  of  seance  “stunts”  ranging 


83 


84 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


from  roping,  tying,  and  slate-writing,  to  materializa¬ 
tion,  have  been  successfully  introduced  by  the  earlier 
mediums,  such  as  Home,  Eddy  Brothers,  Mrs.  Cobb, 
Foster,  Henry  Slade,  and  the  Davenport  Brothers. 

1.  THE  ENVIRONMENT  OF  THE  SEANCE 

If  there  are  genuine  mediums  —  that  is,  if  one  out  of 
a  hundred  is  as  the  wheat  among  the  chaff,  the  gold  in 
the  midst  of  the  dross  —  than  it  is  indeed  extremely 
unfortunate  that  the  spirits  of  our  departed  friends  find 
it  inconvenient  to  return  to  our  old  world  and  com¬ 
municate  with  us  only  under  those  conditions  which 
lend  themselves  so  favorably  to  fraud  and  deception. 
For  instance,  let  us  look  at  this  matter  for  a  moment 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  cunning  trickster  and  the 
wilful  deceiver.  Suppose  we  started  out  on  a  program 
deliberately  to  deceive  the  public  into  thinking  we 
possessed  the  powers  of  spiritistic  mediumship.  First 
we  must  recognize  the  fact  that  the  public  possesses 
little  real  information  of  a  scientific  character  concern¬ 
ing  these  phenomena,  and  that,  therefore,  everything 
would  be  favorable  to  the  practice  of  fraudulent 
methods.  To  further  enhance  our  ability  to  deceive, 
it  would  seem  well  for  us  to  impose  the  following  con¬ 
ditions: 

a.  Absence  of  light  —  more  or  less  complete  darkness. 
The  less  illumination  we  have  upon  the  scene  of  our 
performances,  the  more  secure  against  detection  would 


Physical  Phenomena 


85 


be  our  fraudulent  practices. 

b.  Diversion  of  attention .  To  distract  the  attention 
we  know  to  be  one  of  the  trump  cards  of  both  the  parlor 
magician  and  the  professional  sleight-of-hand  per¬ 
former;  and  it  has  been  our  observation  that  the  most 
phenomenal  things  occur  in  the  seance  chamber,  as  a 
rule,  after  the  sitters  are  tired  out  by  expectant  listen¬ 
ing  and  watching,  or  otherwise  have  had  their  powers  of 
attention  either  partially  exhausted  or  cleverly  diverted. 

c.  The  element  of  surprise.  The  psychology  of  the 
unexpected  would  be  utilized  by  any  performer  who 
would  seek  to  deceive  and  mystify  the  observer.  The 
feats  of  the  professional  conjurer  and  of  the  spirit 
medium  are  often  unexpected  and  unforeseen,  and  that 
is  why  it  is  quite  impossible  to  take  advance  precau¬ 
tions  against  deception  and  trickery. 

d.  Control  of  conditions.  The  magician  and  the 
medium  alike  insist  on  controlling  and  manipulating 
the  arrangement  of  all  lights,  furniture,  and  even  the 
order  of  the  sitters  in  the  seance  room.  Now,  it  is  a 
well-known  fact  that,  from  a  scientific  standpoint,  the 
fundamental  requisite  for  reliable  experimentation  is 
the  complete  control  of  conditions;  therefore,  in  no 
sense  can  a  real  scientific  experiment  be  conducted 
with  spiritualistic  mediums.  Such  tests  are  merely  ob¬ 
servations,  and  at  that,  under  conditions  and  circum¬ 
stances  highly  inimical  to  reliable  and  correct  observa¬ 
tion. 


86 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


e.  Concealment.  The  magician  on  the  stage,  in  the 
performance  of  his  more  difficult  tricks,  always  makes 
use  of  some  sort  of  a  table,  a  shelf,  or  a  screen,  but  he 
seldom  dares  to  employ  such  a  complete  mode  of  con¬ 
cealment  as  the  medium  utilizes  in  the  conventional 
cabinet  or  curtain.  The  magician  seldom  resorts  to 
the  complete  hiding  of  his  person  during  an  experiment. 

f.  The  power  of  suggestion.  Suggestion  is  one  of  the 
main  methods  employed  by  the  magician,  next  to  dis¬ 
tracting  the  attention  of  his  audience,  looking  toward  a 
proper  preparation  of  the  minds  of  his  observers  for 
the  finished  performance  of  the  trick.  The  conjurer 
palms  the  coin  while  he  pretends  to  throw  it  into  the 
air,  the  eye  follows  the  motion  of  his  hand,  and  sug¬ 
gestion  is  thereby  utilized  to  aid  in  the  deception. 

g.  Tying ,  or  holding  hands.  This  sort  of  trick  has 
been  so  frequently  exposed  that  we  no  longer  marvel  at 
seeing  a  man  handcuffed  and  tied  in  a  bag,  or  even 
thrown  into  a  river,  when  he  bobs  up  serenely  with 
hands  and  feet,  which  were  previously  tied,  loosened. 

h.  Emotional  expectancy ,  curiosity ,  and  excitement. 
The  environment  of  an  individual  watching  a  magician 
in  a  theatre  is  that  of  an  unbiased  investigator — a  de¬ 
tached  observer;  but  the  phenomena  of  a  darkened 
seance  room  are  all  contrary  to  these  requisites  of 
scientific  investigation.  They  all  appeal  to  superstition 
and  the  emotions;  the  discussion  of  messages  from  dead 
friends  and  relatives,  in  fact  the  whole  atmosphere  of 


Physical  Phenomena 


87 


spiritualism  is  such  as  to  appeal  to  the  emotions  and 
awe  of  the  supernatural  rather  than  to  reason  and  logic, 
to  feed  curiosity  rather  than  to  foster  accurate  judg¬ 
ment  and  correct  observation. 

W  e  see,  therefore,  that  if  we  should  start  out  de¬ 
liberately  to  arrange  a  program  of  deception,  if  we 
would  purposely  supply  ourselves  with  all  the  tools, 
conditions,  and  environment  favorable  to  fraud,  we 
would  do  only  what  the  mediums  do  under  their  alleged 
spirit  dictation  when  they  turn  off  the  light  and  other¬ 
wise  arrange  the  seance  environment  so  that  it  consti¬ 
tutes  the  ideal  conditions  favorable  to  the  perpetration 
of  fraud. 


2.  MANUAL  DEXTERITY — SLEIGHT-OF-HAND 

Many  of  the  outward  manifestations  accompanying 
the  seances  of  the  lower  grade  commercial  mediums 
are  nothing  more  nor  less  than  sleight-of-hand  tricks. 
Many  of  the  more  common  spiritistic  phenomena  are 
the  result  of  manual  dexterity.  If  the  magician  is 
able  to  deceive  the  eye  of  his  audience  on  a  brilliantly 
lighted  stage,  how  much  more  easy  for  the  medium 
to  practice  this  sort  of  deception  in  the  dimly  lighted 
rooms  —  and  sometimes  they  even  favor  themselves 
by  moments  of  complete  darkness. 

Several  years  ago  I  knew  an  individual  who  had  am¬ 
bitions  to  become  a  magician,  but  not  being  a  prestidig¬ 
itator  of  a  high  order  he  made  little  headway  in  his 


88 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


chosen  profession,  and  so  he  decided  to  become  a 
“ psychic.”  He  sprang  into  prominence  instantly,  and 
within  a  few  years  had  not  only  acquired  a  big  reputa¬ 
tion  but  had  amassed  an  equally  large  fortune.  He 
explained  to  me  one  time,  in  strictest  confidence,  that 
his  tricks  were  so  much  more  influential  when  they  were 
enshrouded  with  the  atmosphere  of  the  supernatural, 
and  when  they  had  added  to  them  the  further  interest 
which,  he  explained  to  me,  “all  people  have  in  spooks 
and  spirits.” 

It  seems  seldom  to  dawn  upon  the  mind  of  the  gen¬ 
eral  public  that  spiritualistic  performers  might  have 
taken  the  pains  and  precaution  to  have  surrounded 
themselves  with  well-trained  and  reliable  confederates. 
But  investigation  shows  that  they  do  this  very  thing. 
Many  of  the  more  successful  of  our  modern  fortune 
tellers,  clairvoyants  and  mediums  have  maintained  a 
large  working  organization,  embracing  numerous  male 
and  female  confederates. 

Not  long  ago  I  had  for  a  patient  a  woman  who  had 
been  for  many  years  employed  as  hand-maiden  to  one 
of  our  well  known  mediums,  and  in  delineating  to  me 
the  story  of  her  life,  which  was  indeed  very  interesting, 
I  not  only  learned  the  details  of  the  manner  in  which 
she  served  and  assisted  her  mediumistic  employer,  but 
learned  also  that  there  were  no  less  than  half  a  dozen 
such  persons  employed  in  connection  with  the  more 
elaborate  seances. 


Physical  Phenomena 


89 


Mechanical  Apparatus.  I  remember  very  well,  twelve 
or  fifteen  years  ago,  when  a  certain  patient  came  to 
consult  me  about  his  health,  and  when  on  inquiring 
about  his  business  —  whether  his  time  was  spent  in¬ 
doors  or  out  of  doors,  etc.,  he  replied  by  telling  me  that 
he  was  a  manufacturer  of  apparatus  for  magicians  and 
mediums.  Now,  I  knew  that  magicians  must  carry  a 
very  large  equipment,  for  it  had  been  my  privilege  to 
know  two  or  three  of  the  leading  magicians  of  the 
present  time,  and  I  had  learned  much  of  their  methods 
and  work,  and  I  knew  of  the  vast  army  of  helpers  they 
must  have  to  arrange  their  performances  and  the 
enormous  amount  of  paraphernalia  and  apparatus 
which  they  carried  in  order  to  produce  their  entertain¬ 
ing  effects.  But  I  confess  it  was  a  shock  to  me  to  know 
that  the  manufacture  of  apparatus  for  mediums  was  a 
business,  and  that  it  was  carried  on  in  connection  with 
the  manufacture  of  this  same  sort  of  appliances  for 
use  by  professional  magicians. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  high  class  mediums,  who 
pull  off  the  more  marvelous  stunts,  must  needs  always 
perform  amid  their  own  surroundings.  They  cannot  do 
these  things  out  in  the  open.  Everything  must  be 
carefully  staged.  The  author  well  remembers  the  case 
of  Madam  X,  who,  in  connection  with  a  performance 
in  which  the  table  was  dancing  about  rather  lightly  in 
obedience  to  the  raising  and  lowering  of  her  arms  — 
when,  to  my  mind,  the  most  simple  explanation  would 


90 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


be  the  employment  of  electro-magnetic  force  of  some 
sort,  since  I  noticed  she  was  very  careful  to  furnish  her 
own  table  for  this  demonstration  —  I  proposed  to  this 
medium  that  she  allow  my  wife  to  take  her  into  an  ad¬ 
joining  room  where  she  should  undress  and  allow  her 
clothing  to  be  examined.  This  she  refused  to  do.  Next 
I  proposed  that  I  subject  her  table  to  an  X-ray  obser¬ 
vation  and  this  she  also  refused.  She  could  not  have 
her  consecrated  furniture  subjected  to  such  skeptical 
indignity.  And  so  I  could  recite  scores  of  cases  in 
which  the  mediums  refused  to  submit  to  real  examina¬ 
tion  and  scrutiny  by  mechanical  and  electrical  experts. 

The  initiated  among  mediums  and  conjurers  know 
where  to  go  to  buy  the  self-playing  guitar  which  is  such 
a  helpful  addition  to  a  medium’s  tools  of  deception. 
Guitars  are  also  made  for  mediums  in  which  one  of  the 
panels  can  be  removed,  and  one  such  instrument  can 
become  the  hiding  place  for  a  vast  amount  of  medium- 
istic  paraphernalia.  Guitars  may  in  this  way  also  have 
placed  within  them  the  mechanism  of  a  small  music 
box. 

Still  another  medium  kept  a  robe  large  enough  to 
simulate  a  spirit’s  return  in  a  hollow  boot  heel,  while 
in  the  heel  of  the  other  shoe  he  kept  an  assortment  of 
netting  masks  with  which  he  could  effect  almost  a 
dozen  face  transformations.  One  medium  who  had 
been  repeatedly  searched  by  investigating  committees 
was  finally  caught.  The  peculiar  luminous  mask  with 


Physical  Phenomena 


91 


which  he  covered  his  face  was  at  last  discovered  con¬ 
cealed  within  the  body  of  a  gold  watch  case  which  was 
minus  its  works. 


3.  INVISIBLE  WRITING 

One  of  the  common  methods  employed,  up  to  the 
present  time,  of  getting  spirit  messages,  and  one  which 
I  have  seen  most  cleverly  perpetrated  by  a  number  of 
mediums,  is  to  write  the  alleged  spirit  message  on  a 
piece  of  paper  with  any  one  of  the  many  known  invis¬ 
ible  writing  fluids,  and  then  before  the  eyes  of  the 
sitter  the  medium  will  seal  this  apparently  blank  piece 
of  paper  in  an  envelope  which  the  investigator  can 
hold  with  his  own  hands,  and  then  after  the  lapse  of  a 
certain  length  of  time  the  envelope  can  be  opened  and 
the  spirit  message  will  be  clearly  visible. 

Almost  half  a  hundred  different  recipes  for  invisible 
writing  fluid  are  in  use  by  the  mediums  of  this  country, 
and  we  have  been  able  to  collect  the  formulae  for  almost 
this  number,  more  than  a  dozen  of  which  require  only 
the  application  of  a  little  heat  to  develop  them;  and 
with  still  others  the  inside  of  the  envelopes  can  be  so 
treated  that  the  invisible  writing  will  appear  within  a 
few  minutes  after  the  paper  is  inserted  in  these  specially 
prepared  containers. 

Some  time  back  a  certain  medium  attracted  consid¬ 
erable  attention  by  putting  a  blank  piece  of  paper  in  a 
large,  wide-mouthed  bottle,  securely  corking  the  bottle, 


92 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


and  allowing  the  investigator  to  hold  it  in  his  own 
hands,  and  within  a  few  minutes  the  alleged  spirit 
message  would  appear  in  a  plainly  visible  and  beautiful 
handwriting.  This  was  a  very  impressive  “stunt” 
until  another  medium  in  possession  of  the  secret  dis¬ 
closed  its  technique,  and  now  we  can  all  produce  the 
same  spirit  messages  by  writing  on  the  paper  with  a 
weak  solution  of  copper  sulphate,  in  advance,  then 
stopping  it  up  securely  in  a  bottle  that  has  just  been 
washed  out  with  a  solution  of  ammonia  —  enough  of 
the  gas  of  which  is  left  in  the  bottle  to  develop  the 
writing. 


4.  ELECTRIC  PHENOMENA 

Magnets  have  been  used  very  liberally  by  the  more 
expert  mediums  in  accomplishing  their  wonders.  One 
medium  operated  on  a  glass  table  suspended  by  four 
ribbons.  A  cast  of  a  hand  was  placed  on  this  piece  of 
glass.  The  hand  was  carefully  and  evenly  balanced  so 
that  the  least  tilt  would  cause  the  fingers  to  tap  upon 
the  glass.  Any  question  asked  by  a  sitter  would  be 
promptly  answered  by  the  hand.  You  could  thor¬ 
oughly  examine  the  hand  at  any  time,  and  the  experi¬ 
ment  was  conducted  throughout  in  broad  daylight. 
You  could  examine  the  suspended  glass  and  the  tap¬ 
ping  hand  while  it  was  working;  no  threads  or  wires 
were  present.  Performances  of  this  sort  are  conducted 
by  means  of  an  electro-magnet  thrown  into  and  out  of 


Physical  Phenomena 


93 


the  field  by  an  assistant  in  an  adjoining  room  who  hears 
the  questions.  The  fingers  of  the  hand  model  con¬ 
tained  a  core  of  soft  iron,  and  the  confederate  who  lis¬ 
tened  to  the  questions  merely  pressed  a  button  to 
cause  the  hand  to  give  the  desired  number  of  taps  in 
answer  to  any  and  all  questions. 

I  have  been  recently  told  of  a  conjurer  who  has  pro¬ 
duced  a  little  table  that  will  give  spirit  messages.  You 
put  your  ear  down  to  the  top  of  the  table  and  you  hear 
it  talk,  yet  you  can  examine  the  table  at  will.  The 
table  is  in  a  room  that  is  wired  for  “ induction”  effects, 
while  within  the  top  of  the  table  is  placed  a  telephone 
receiver.  Around  the  receiver  melted  paraffine  is 
poured,  which  gives  the  same  note  as  the  rest  of  the 
table  which  has  a  veneered  top  and  gives  no  hollow 
sound  at  any  spot.  Several  annunciators  are  placed  in 
the  wall  carrying  questions  to  a  confederate  in  an  ad¬ 
joining  room,  who  in  turn  transmits  his  answers  to  the 
top  of  the  table  in  due  time. 

In  the  near  future  we  shall  no  doubt  be  treated  to 
phenomena  that  are  due  to  real  wireless  telegraphy  and 
telephony.  There  is  no  reason  why  mediums  should 
not  use  these  as  they  have  the  more  simple  and  older 
technique  of  days  gone  by.  One  experimenter  has 
already  been  reported  as  working  on  the  construction 
of  a  “whispering  gallery”  in  which  the  operator  can 
stand  and  have  voices  emanate  from  a  blank  piece  of 
cardboard  which  will  serve  the  practical  purpose  of  a 


94 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


transmitter,  or  perhaps  a  piece  of  cardboard  —  appar¬ 
ently  —  which  contains  a  thin  metallic  sheet  between 
its  layers. 

How  one  Medium  became  famous.  Perhaps  you  who 

are  reading  this  may  attend  the  seance  of  a  medium  as 

clever  as  the  woman  who  became  nationally  famous  as 

0 

a  result  of  her  work  one  evening  in  a  western  city. 
While  she  was  in  the  midst  of  her  communication  with 
the  shades  of  those  present,  she  stopped  short.  “I  see 
a  man  murdered!”  she  exclaimed.  Then  she  described 
a  violent  death  scene,  giving  the  name  of  the  man  and 
the  address  in  the  city  where  he  was  actually  murdered 
a  few  minutes  before  she  received  the  “spirit  message.” 
The  newspapers  confirmed  her  statements,  and  later 
spread  her  fame  throughout  the  country.  From  that 
time  on  people  paid  ridiculous  prices  for  her  services 
—  until  she  was  exposed. 

The  secret  of  her  spiritualistic  demonstration  was 
simple.  A  radio  antenna  in  the  sole  of  her  shoe  re¬ 
ceived  impulses  from  a  transmitting  antenna  in  the  rug 
upon  which  she  stood,  and  conveyed  them  to  a  sensitive 
head-phone  hidden  in  a  large  bouquet  of  flowers  on  her 
shoulders.  A  reporter  had  telephoned  the  news  of  the 
murder  to  her  confederate  behind  the  scenes,  who  trans¬ 
mitted  it  by  radio-telephone.  The  receiver  concealed 
in  the  flowers  was  not  loud  enough  for  the  audience  to 
hear,  but  when  the  medium  leaned  her  head  upon  the 
flowers  she  could  hear  it  distinctly.  Her  feat  was  a 


Physical  Phenomena 


95 


blow  she  had  been  aiming  at  skeptics  for  some  time. 
She  had  placed  her  reporters  at  police  stations,  hos¬ 
pitals,  and  newspaper  offices  to  wait  for  the  news 
of  a  death  by  violence  which  would  receive  space  in 
the  papers.  . 

Fire  Eaters.  Mediums  are  often  observed  (like 
Home)  to  show  their  supernatural  powers  by  handling 
live  coals  of  lire  or  otherwise  playfully  juggling  highly 
heated  objects  —  lamp  chimneys,  etc.  Still  other  ob¬ 
jects,  such  as  handkerchiefs  and  neckties  are  passed 
through  a  flame  without  burning.  Many  formulae 
have  been  devised  for  temporarily  fire-proofing  one’s 
hands  or  other  objects  so  as  to  stand  considerable  heat 
and  blaze  without  damage.  One  successful  medium, 
long  before  the  American  public,  gives  the  following 
formula  for  accomplishing  this  purpose:  “Dissolve 
one-half  ounce  of  camphor  in  two  ounces  of  aquavitae; 
add  one  ounce  of  quicksilver  and  one  ounce  of  liquid 
styrax,  which  is  the  product  of  myrrh,  and  which  pre¬ 
vents  the  camphor  igniting.  Shake  and  mix  well  to¬ 
gether.”  Bathe  the  inside  of  the  hand  and  the  fingers 
in  this  preparation,  allowing  it  to  dry  on,  and  you  can 
duplicate  the  performance  with  the  hot  lamp  chimney 
and  hold  your  fingers  in  a  blaze  quite  a  while  without 
any  bad  effect. 


5.  TRICKS  OF  THE  SEANCE  ROOM 
You  must  not  forget  that  commercial  mediums  are 


96 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


expert  sleight-of-hand  performers.  They  are  able  to 
have  their  hands  tied  behind  their  backs  and,  just  like 
the  magician,  Keller,  Thurston  and  others,  would  be 
able  to  show  you  their  hands  free  if  the  lights  were 
turned  on;  but  in  the  darkness  of  the  seance  room  they 
are  able  to  produce  the  many  wonders  which  are  re¬ 
garded  by  the  sitters  as  spirit  manifestations.  They 
know  where  to  buy  all  the  paraphernalia  needed  to 
carry  on  their  work.  There  are  dealers  right  here  in 
Chicago  who  sell  this  stuff.  Not  long  ago,  Mr.  Hamil¬ 
ton,  in  a  magazine  article,  gave  extracts  from  a  cata¬ 
logue  of  forty  pages  which  offered  for  sale  all  the 
secrets  and  paraphernalia  that  mediums  use  in 
perpetrating  their  frauds. 

The  mediums  know  how  to  be  tied  up  in  a  sack  and 
to  liberate  themselves  so  that  in  the  darkness  they  can 
carry  on  their  work;  and  yet  when  you  turn  on  the 
light  you  will  find  them  tied  and  sealed  as  before. 
There  are  all  sorts  of  mechanical  rappers,  electrical 
thumping  machines,  etc.,  which  can  be  had  for  the 
purpose  of  producing  spirit  raps.  I  have  never  been 
able  to  get  these  raps  in  an  open  room  when  even  but 
a  faint  light  was  present.  It  always  requires  perfect 
darkness. 

There  are  a  score  of  different  methods  for  tipping 
tables,  the  most  common  of  which  is  to  cause  the  table 
to  lean  forward  slightly,  the  medium  gets  his  toes  under 
the  near  legs,  and  then  balances  it  there;  and  in  some 


Physical  Phenomena 


97 


cases  like  this  I  have  known  spectators  to  go  away  and 
say  that  the  table  rose  half  way  to  the  ceiling.  Many 
other  methods  are  used,  such  as  the  method  of  the 
black  pin  inserted  in  the  top  of  the  table  and  lifted  by 
means  of  a  notch  in  the  medium’s  ring. 

The  manager,  or  the  major-domo  of  the  seance  room, 
often  supplies  the  medium  with  her  tools,  spirit  robes, 
etc. 

There  are  a  half  dozen  different  successful  methods 
of  holding  hands,  in  which  the  medium  can  be  released, 
and  yet  the  sitters  on  either  side  think  they  are  securely 
holding  the  medium’s  hand. 

6.  INDEPENDENT  VOICES - TRUMPETS 

The  so-called  “independent  voices”  which  appear  in 
connection  with  many  spiritualistic  seances  are  a  great 
puzzle  to  many  people,  but  careful  investigation  usually 
discloses  that  they  have  been  carried  out  into  the  room 
by  means  of  extension  speaking  trumpets,  speaking 
tubes,  induction  telephone  technique,  ventriloquism, 
etc.  Many  times  the  confederates  and  assistants  in 
adjoining  rooms  are  informed  of  what  is  transpiring 
in  the  seance  room  by  means  of  the  well-known  dicto¬ 
graph  system,  whose  openings  are  concealed  behind 
furniture,  underneath  wall  paper,  etc.  These  systems 
are  also  used  by  the  medium  for  producing  whispers 
which  are  heard  by  the  members  of  the  circle  in  the 
darkened  room. 


98 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


I  don’t  know  of  any  “stunt”  in  which  mediums  in¬ 
dulge  themselves  that  I  have  so  many  times  detected 
to  be  pure  fraud  as  that  of  the  speaking  trumpet. 
Careful  investigation  always  discloses  that  it  is  the 
medium  or  some  confederate  who  is  actually  talking 
through  the  trumpet.  They  get  their  hands  loose  from 
the  magic  circle  and  they  use  the  trumpet,  which  is 
built  on  the  extension  principle  and  can  be  shortened 
or  lengthened,  and  by  the  direction  in  which  it  is 
pointed  the  voice  can  be  made  apparently  to  originate 
in  almost  any  part  of  an  average  sized  room.  In  other 
cases  confederates  are  undoubtedly  employed  and  are 
properly  placed  in  the  circle  for  assisting  in  this  work. 

I  was  informed  a  number  of  years  ago,  by  an  expert 
trumpet  medium,  that  it  required  two  or  three  years 
of  practice  to  become  proficient  in  the  art  —  that  is,  to 
be  able  to  manage  a  trumpet  so  that  no  voice  would  be 
heard  at  the  mouth  but  only  at  the  bell  of  the  trumpet. 

Trumpet  speaking  is  rapidly  going  out  of  fashion 
because  too  many  times  the  pocket  electric  flashlight 
has  been  turned  on  them  so  disastrously,  and  thus 
scores  of  these  performers  have  come  to  their  untimely 
end,  for  when  the  light  is  suddenly  switched  on  or  a 
flash  is  thrown  on  the  scene,  it  is  always  found  that  the 
medium  is  at  the  end  of  the  so-called  “spirit-speaking 
trumpet.” 

7.  SEANCE  LIGHTS 

Many  methods  of  producing  light  have  been  dis- 


Physical  Phenomena 


99 


covered  to  be  employed  by  so-called  mediums.  Some¬ 
times  these  crafty  creatures  carry  around  a  bottle  of 
“cough  medicine”  which  enables  them  to  produce 
many  striking  phenomena,  after  the  lights  are  turned 
out,  in  the  shape  of  floating  lights  and  other  luminous 
manifestations. 

Luminous  phenomena  “are  easily  simulated,”  says 
Doctor  Maxwell.  Most  people  will  agree  to  this  can¬ 
did  verdict  of  so  experienced  and  so  sympathetic  an 
investigator.  Tons  of  phosphorus  have  been  used  in 
the  service  of  religion  since  1848.  It  has  taken  the 
place  of  incense.  The  saintly  Moses  twice  had  a  nasty 
mess  with  his  bottle  of  phosphorus.  Herne  was  one 
night  tracing  a  pious  message  in  luminous  characters 
(with  a  damp  match)  when  there  was  a  crackle  and 
flash;  the  match  had  “struck.”  The  spiritualistic 
movement  abounds  in  incidents  which  are  in  a  double 
sense  “luminous.” 

Certain  sulphides  may  be  used  instead  of  phosphorus, 
and  in  modern  times  electricity  is  an  excellent  means  of 
producing  lights  at  a  distance.  Chemicals  of  the  pyro¬ 
technic  sort  are  also  useful.  One  must  remember  that 
behind  the  thousands  of  mediums,  whose  fertile  brains 
are  constantly  elaborating  new  methods  of  evading 
control,  are  manufacturers  and  scientific  experts  who 
supply  them  with  chemicals  and  apparatus.  One  often 
hears  Spiritualists  laugh  at  this  suggestion  as  a  wild 
theory  of  their  opponents.  But  positive  proof  that 


100 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


such  is  the  case  has  been  given  over  and  over  again. 

Mediums  have  told  me  how  they  use  French  bridal 
veiling  and  Belgian  netting  treated  with  phosphorus 
and  other  compounds  to  manufacture  all  sorts  of 
beautiful  spirit  robes.  I  once  saw  taken  in  a  raid  in  a 
seance  in  Chicago  some  thirty  yards  of  this  material 
which  could  be  almost  secreted  in  the  palm  of  the  hand, 
and  could  easily  be  contained  in  an  ordinary  pocket. 
In  fact  I  was  able  to  put  it  all,  very  conveniently  in  a 
pint  cup.  There  are  many  different  ways  of  preparing 
this  material  so  as  to  make  it  properly  luminous  and 
“spooky”  in  appearance  during  the  darkened  hours  of 
the  seance.  One  experienced  medium  furnished  us  with 
a  recipe  for  treating  this  fabric  in  order  successfully  to 
convert  it  into  “spirit  robes.” 

Most  mediums  who  attempt  materializations  have 
been  found,  upon  investigation,  to  employ  either  con¬ 
federates  or  some  form  of  luminous  costume.  When 
the  medium  works  alone,  he  generally  uses  the  lumi¬ 
nous  costumes;  but  when  he  has  confederates  who 
impersonate  the  spirits,  this  is  unnecessary.  If  the 
medium  works  from  a  cabinet,  he  first  allows  strangers 
to  erect  and  at  the  same  time  thoroughly  to  examine  it, 
after  which  he  enters  the  cabinet  and  is  thoroughly  d^ 
robed  by  a  committee,  while  at  the  same  time  his  cloth¬ 
ing  is  examined.  The  committee,  having  satisfied  itself 
that  the  medium  is  in  possession  of  no  robes,  retires. 
The  medium  usually  has  an  assistant  who  stays  with 


Physical  Phenomena 


101 


the  spectators  during  the  seance,  and  who  occupies  the 
time  at  this  juncture  by  making  an  appropriate  speech 
regarding  the  favorable  conditions  which  should  be 
maintained  during  the  seance.  During  the  brief  ad¬ 
dress,  the  assistant  usually  stands  directly  in  front  of 
the  closed  cabinet  curtains.  Under  the  tail  of  his  coat, 
behind,  is  an  abundant  supply  of  luminous  silk  forms, 
faces,  hands,  costumes,  and  two  or  three  pencil- 
reaching  rods.  The  medium  slyly  slips  his  hands 
through  the  curtains  and  helps  himself  to  this  liberal 
supply  of  spirit  habiliments.  The  assistant  now  has  the 
lights  extinguished  and  takes  his  position  in  the  front 
row  with  the  sincere  believers,  where  he  can  best  see  to 
it  that  proper  conditions  prevail — -conditions  in  every 
way  favorable  to  the  successful  conduct  of  the  material¬ 
ization  seance. 


9.  ECTOPLASM  AND  EVA  C. 

One  European  medium  had  to  submit  to  a  surgical 
operation  at  the  hands  of  a  skilled  surgeon,  because  she 
had  swallowed  her  masks  when  detection  threatened. 
This  woman  is  a  ruminant.  She  swallows  her  para¬ 
phernalia  and  brings  it  up  at  will.  She  swallows  the 
ectoplasm,  too.  I  had  some  ectoplasm  in  my  hands  not 
two  weeks  ago.  It  is  manufactured  by  the  same  man 
who  makes  the  apparatus  for  magicians. 

In  my  study  of  the  case  of  Eva  C.,  I  have  reached  the 
same  conclusion  as  that  arrived  at  by  certain  ob- 


102 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


servers  who  have  made  a  critical  study  of  the  phe¬ 
nomena  connected  with  this  medium’s  performances, 
and  that  is:  I  believe  that  she  swallows  much  of  her 
material,  and  that  she  possesses  the  power  to  bring  it 
up  from  her  stomach  or  from  a  dilated  oesophagus  at 
will.  Medical  science  has  in  its  records  between  fifty 
and  one  hundred  cases  of  just  such  remarkable  indi¬ 
viduals  who  are  technically  known  as  “ruminants.” 
There  is  much  evidence  on  record  which  goes  to  prove 
that  Eva  C.  is  a  ruminant.  She  has  been  known  to 
bleed  freely  from  the  mouth  and  gullet.  Of  course 
Doyle  has  objected  to  this  explanation  on  the  ground 
that  she  sometimes  performs  with  a  net  sewn  about  her 
neck.  The  fact  is  that  she  seldom  performs  with  this 
net  sewn  about  her  neck,  out  of  hundreds  of  seances 
there  being  a  record  of  its  being  used  as  a  test  only 
seven  times,  and  that  she  refused  to  permit  its  further 
employment  because  in  four  out  of  these  seven  sittings 
she  was  unable  to  elude  her  observers  and  the  seances 
were  barren  of  results. 

10.  THE  TRICK  OF  READING  SEALED  WRITING 

The  mediums  are  very  clever  and  employ  many 
methods  of  getting  your  name.  I  remember  well,  on  a 
cold  wintry  evening  a  few  years  back,  attending  a 
seance  and  carrying  a  friend’s  calling  card  in  my  over¬ 
coat  pocket.  I  was  careful  to  leave  my  own  cards  and 
all  letters  that  might  identify  me  at  home,  and  I  no- 


Physical  Phenomena 


103 


ticed  that  the  medium,  during  the  evening,  identified 
me  and  addressed  me  by  the  name  of  my  friend’s  card 
which  I  had  left  in  my  overcoat  pocket  in  the  hallway. 

On  another  occasion,  when  I  had  most  carefully  ex¬ 
cluded  from  my  person  anything  that  could  identify 
me,  the  medium  promptly  recognized  me  and  called 
me  by  name  during  the  seance,  saying:  “You  are 
Doctor  Sadler,  and  there  is  a  spirit  messenger  here 
from  the  other  world  who  has  something  to  say  to 
you.”  This  case  greatly  puzzled  me  and  I  was  some 
time  in  solving  the  problem  —  in  fact  I  did  not  solve 
it,  but  on  a  return  visit  the  maid  in  waiting  on  this 
medium  let  the  “cat  out  of  the  bag”  by  asking  me  for 
some  further  instructions  in  connection  with  advice 
she  had  received  at  my  hands  in  a  clinic  where  she  had 
come  for  help;  and  then  when  she  was  confronted  with 
the  charge  admitted  having  given  her  employer  my 
name.  This  but  illustrates  that  if  we  can  really  get  at 
the  bottom  of  these  cases  we  always  find  a  purely  hu¬ 
man,  perfectly  natural  explanation  of  the  whole 
affair.  It  mystifies  us  only  as  the  magician  entertains 
and  deceives  us,  because  we  do  not  know  at  first  how 
they  do  it. 

Getting  Your  Name.  Of  the  many  methods  utilized 
for  getting  your  name,  some  feature  of  the  following 
procedure  is  quite  universally  employed  by  travelling 
mediums.  The  idea  is  to  get  an  impression  of  your 
writing,  including,  of  course,  your  name,  that  is  not  a 


104 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


carbon  impression.  The  impression  is,  in  fact,  invis¬ 
ible  until  after  it  is  “  developed. ”  The  paper  used  is  a 
thin,  highly  glazed  paper.  A  tablet  of  this  paper  is 
provided  for  the  subject  to  write  upon.  He  can  make 
an  inspection  of  the  tablet  if  he  so  desire,  and  he  will 
find  nothing  out  of  the  ordinary. 

The  operator  first  prepares  a  few  sheets  of  the  paper 
by  rubbing  over  one  side  of  them  with  spermaceti  wax 
which  has  been  melted  and  mixed  with  a  small  amount 
of  vaseline.  The  wax,  being  white,  cannot  be  seen  on 
the  paper  after  the  same  has  been  coated  with  it.  This 
prepared  sheet  is  generally  placed  in  the  tablet  two  or 
three  sheets  below  the  top,  coated  side  down,  being 
held  in  place  with  library  paste. 

When  the  writing  is  done,  an  invisible  impression  is 
transferred  from  the  waxed  surface  of  the  prepared 
sheet,  to  the  sheet  next  under  it.  Of  course  this  cannot 
be  seen  until  developed,  as  the  wax  is  very  thin  and  is 
the  color  of  the  paper.  After  the  subject  writes  his 
questions,  and  removes  the  sheet  bearing  them,  the 
operator  secures  this  tablet  by  almost  any  one  of  a 
number  of  secret  means;  and  then  he  secretly  removes 
the  sheet  bearing  the  impression  and  develops  it  by 
throwing  on  the  sheet  some  powdered  charcoal,  and 
shaking  the  sheet  around  until  the  powder  adheres  to 
the  wax,  after  which  the  surplus  powder  is  dusted  off. 
The  writing  appears  plainly  and  may  be  easily  read. 
Some  performers  use  plumbago,  lampblack,  or  coal 


Physical  Phenomena 


105 


dust,  instead  of  charcoal. 

There  are  so  many  ways  of  gaining  information  as 
to  what  you  write  that  it  is  safe  to  say  that  if  the  sitter 
in  any  seance  or  the  inquirer  of  any  medium  ever 
indulges  in  any  writing  on  the  medium’s  premises,  the 
medium  will  be  able  to  gain  an  accurate  knowledge  of 
what  was  written.  I  have  been  able  to  ferret  out  more 
than  a  dozen  different  methods  whereby  a  medium  can 
gain  a  knowledge  of  what  the  sitter  writes,  and  I  have 
never  written  anything  for  a  medium  on  their  own 
paper  and  with  the  pencils  they  furnish,  and  on  the 
premises,  but  what  they  were  able  to  read  the  writing; 
but  in  no  cases,  extending  over  a  period  of  twenty  years, 
have  mediums  ever  been  able  to  read  what  I  have 
written  at  home,  which  writing  I  have  taken  to  the 
seance  room  and  kept  in  my  hands  or  in  my  own 

The  Alcohol  Method.  Perhaps  the  most  universal 
method  of  reading  sealed  writing,  which  has  been  em¬ 
ployed  by  mediums  in  the  past,  has  been  through  the 
use  of  absolute  or  relatively  absolute  alcohol.  These 
mediums  take  care  that  the  writing  is  placed  in  the 
envelopes  so  that  the  written  surface  is  against  the 
face  of  the  envelope.  It  is  only  necessary  then,  with 
a  sponge  or  a  handkerchief  which  may  be  concealed 
in  the  hair,  the  sleeve,  or  somewhere  about  the  table, 
to  moisten  the  front  of  the  envelope  with  the  alcohol 
which  renders  it  transparent  and  the  writing  is  entirely 


106 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


clear  to  the  medium.  In  a  few  seconds  the  alcohol 
evaporates  leaving  the  paper  smooth  and  dry,  with  no 
wrinkling  of  the  surface,  and  there  is  no  way  of  detect¬ 
ing  that  it  has  been  applied. 

11.  TRICK  ENVELOPES 

I  have  collected  from  mediums  and  conjurers  more 
than  a  score  of  different  methods  of  preparing  trick 
envelopes  for  the  deception  of  the  spiritualistic  inquirer. 
One  method,  which  has  come  to  be  used  in  the  past 
dozen  years  by  many  mediums,  is  to  have  a  box  of 
ordinary-appearing  envelopes  sitting  on  the  table  in  the 
ante-room  where  the  inquirers  write  their  questions. 
Now,  the  medium  takes  one  of  these  envelopes  and 
with  a  pair  of  sharp  scissors  cuts  a  very  small  bit  off 
one  end  and  the  bottom.  The  back  side  of  the  envelope 
is  then  discarded  and  only  the  front  side  with  its  flap 
is  used.  This  half  of  the  envelope,  it  will  be  found, 
will  now  very  readily  slip  inside  of  another  envelope 
and  the  two  flaps  will  fit  into  each  other  very  accurately. 
If  the  flap  of  the  whole  envelope  is  slightly  moistened, 
it  can  be  readily  sealed  to  the  flap  of  the  dummy  so 
as  to  avoid  detection  under  the  sharpest  scrutiny.  Now 
before  the  medium  seals  these  two  flaps  together  the 
spirit  message  is  prepared  and  placed  in  the  compart¬ 
ment  between  the  two  fronts,  and  after  this  trick 
envelope  is  thus  prepared  it  is  placed  in  the  box  con¬ 
taining  the  other  innocent  and  honest  envelopes  which 


Physical  Phenomena 


107 


it  resembles  in  every  way.  When  it  is  removed  from 
this  box  in  the  presence  of  the  sitter,  there  is  certainly 
nothing  to  suggest  any  previous  preparation,  even 
though  it  be  carefully  examined:  that  is,  provided  the 
medium  sits — as  he  always  does — in  such  a  position 
that  the  sitter  is  between  him  and  the  light. 

The  message  is  then  dropped  into  the  envelope  by 
the  medium,  while  perhaps  the  subject  holds  it  open, 
it  is  sealed  in  the  presence  and  full  view  of  the  sitter, 
after  which  the  envelope  is  taken  in  the  tips  of  the 
fingers  of  the  medium’s  right  hand  and  he  requests 
the  subject  to  hold  the  other  endo 

Now  when  the  stage  is  all  set,  and  after  a  suitable 
interlude  of  talking,  and  after  a  signal  has  been  received 
that  the  spirit  has  written  the  message,  the  medium 
proceeds  to  tear  off  the  end  of  the  envelope  himself, 
and  while  deftly  holding  the  envelope  in  his  left  hand, 
he  reaches  into  the  front  compartment  with  the  fingers 
of  his  right  hand,  bringing  out  the  message  which  he 
immediately  hands  to  the  enquirer,  asking  that  it  be 
examined  and  read.  Now,  as  a  rule  the  subject  is 
considerably  excited  at  this  time  —  unless  he  is  a  cool- 
headed  investigator — and  during  this  little  flurry  it  is 
an  easy  matter  for  the  medium  to  slip  the  envelope 
just  used  into  his  pocket  and  bring  forth  therefrom  a 
duplicate  which  has  been  prepared  beforehand  —  a  gen¬ 
uine  envelope  with  the  end  torn  off  in  exactly  the  same 
fashion  as  that  which  has  just  been  used  for  the  trick. 


108 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


And  after  the  inquirer  has  read  his  “  spirit  ”  message, 
this  envelope  can  be  handed  over  to  him  for  a  full  and 
complete  examination. 

12.  SLATE  WRITING 

There  are,  literally,  scores  of  methods  for  practicing 
deception  in  slate  writing.  The  basic  trick  is  to  ex¬ 
change  the  slates  right  before  your  eyes  without  your 
detecting  it.  The  methods  are  too  numerous  to 
describe  in  our  limited  space. 

There  are  also  chemical  tricks,  although  they  are  not 
so  much  used.  If  a  message  be  prepared  with  nitrate 
of  silver  and  then  breathed  upon,  it  will  vanish.  If 
the  slate  be  washed  with  salt  water,  the  message  appears 
but  cannot  be  erased.  There  are  also  dozens  of  chem¬ 
icals  for  writing  invisible  messages  on  paper,  which  will 
appear  from  heat,  or  from  the  application  of  a  blotter 
saturated  with  other  chemicals. 

If  a  message  be  written  on  paper  with  a  solution  of 
sulphate  of  iron,  it  is  invisible.  If  the  paper  be  placed 
in  an  envelope  moistened  inside  with  a  solution  of  nut- 
galls,  the  writing  appears.  The  paper  can  be  placed 
between  slates  just  washed  with  the  same  solution,  and 
the  writing  will  soon  be  visible. 

There  are  also  slate  writers  who  write  with  a  small 
piece  of  pencil  held  on  the  end  of  a  single  finger  by  a 
flesh-colored  piece  of  courtplaster  with  a  hole  in  its 
center.  In  such  cases  the  message  is  written  while  the 


Physical  Phenomena 


109 


hand  pinches  the  slate  up  under  the  table.  There  is 
a  thimble  used,  sometimes,  with  holders  attached  con¬ 
taining  colored  crayons;  but  it  requires  an  expert  to 
use  it. 

Trick  Slates .  The  “flap  slate”  has  also  been  suc¬ 
cessfully  used  by  fraudulent  mediums.  This  looks  very 
much  like  an  ordinary  innocent  slate,  except  that  it 
has  a  flap  which  fits  neatly  into  the  frame  of  the  slate. 
Elaborate  spirit  messages  can  be  written  upon  the  slate 
under  this  flap,  the  slate  can  be  critically  examined 
and  the  writing  of  course  is  fully  concealed.  Now  this 
flap  fits  sufficiently  loose  so  that  the  medium  can,  in  its 
manipulation,  turn  the  slate  over,  remove  the  flap,  and 
then  when  the  slate  is  exposed  the  concealed  message 
is  in  full  view.  Various  modifications  of  this  trick 
have  been  employed  from  time  to  time  by  the  most 
successful  mediums  and  it  has  been  very  difficult  to 
detect  the  fraud. 


13.  THE  OUIJA  BOARD 

In  the  vast  majority  of  instances  the  phenomena  of 
the  ouija  board  represent  more  or  less  conscious  and 
definite  fraud.  That  is,  the  individual  either  con¬ 
sciously  cheats,  or  is  being  hoodwinked  by  his  own  sub¬ 
conscious  mind. 

Perhaps  the  most  monumental  demonstration  of  the 
sophistries  of  the  ouija  board  was  made  by  two  British 
lieutenants  who  were  Turkish  military  prisoners  at 


110 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


Yozgad  during  the  late  World  War. 

These  two  young  men,  having  heard  of  the  recent 
outbreaks  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  and  after  reading  the 
spiritistic  ebullitions  of  Sir  A.  Conan  Doyle,  decided 
on  the  production  of  a  little  spirit  phenomena  on  their 
own  hook.  These  young  men  assembled  about  them 
some  of  their  fellow  prisoners  of  war,  constructed  a 
ouija  board  upon  which  they  moved  a  glass,  touched 
lightly  by  the  fingers  of  two  of  them,  and  as  a  means 
at  first  of  harmless  diversion  and  entertainment,  one 
of  these  young  men  began  to  fake  “spirit”  messages. 
He  enjoyed  the  sensation  of  outwitting  his  fellow  pris¬ 
oners,  and  witnessing  their  looks  of  amazement  and 
hearing  their  expressions  of  astonishment. 

With  the  passing  of  days  the  fame  of  these  young 
men  grew.  By  fishing  for  information  here  and  there 
and  by  means  of  clever  guesswork  and  fortunate  stabs 
in  the  dark  they  created  for  themselves  an  enviable 
reputation  as  “mystics,”  “psychics,”  and  “sensi¬ 
tives.”  They  became  the  talk  of  the  whole  camp.  It 
seems  to  have  been  the  intention  of  the  deceiver  to 
have  made  an  early  confession  of  his  culpability  and 
ask  forgiveness,  and  to  have  explained  that  it  was  all 
a  joke,  but  he  got  in  farther  and  farther,  and  finally 
confessed  to  his  associate  that  his  part  was  all  a  fraud 
and  the  associate  made  the  same  confession.  Then 
they  decided  to  go  on  together  and  have  a  little  more 
fun,  as  times  were  dull  in  this  Turkish  military  camp. 


Physical  Phenomena 


111 


The  spare  time  of  the  camp  for  some  time,  turned  its 
attention  to  “  spooking,  ”  and  soon  the  Turkish  guards 
became  interested  and  considerable  disturbance  was 
created  at  one  time  because  of  the  belief  on  the  part 
of  the  Turks  that  these  mediums  were  sending  out  and 
receiving  contraband  military  messages.  Through  the 
means  of  this  apparently  harmless  prank,  a  tremendous 
belief  in  the  occult  and  the  supernatural  was  built  up 
on  the  part  of  the  British  prisoners  of  war  in  this 
camp.  The  story  is  as  remarkable  as  that  chronicled 
by  any  medium  of  highest  repute.  No  professional 
performer  of  spiritistic  phenomena,  or  amateur  dabbler 
in  the  occult,  ever  had  a  more  remarkable  experience 
than  these  two  young  men  had  in  bamboozling  their 
fellow  prisoners. 

These  two  mediums,  if  we  may  now  call  them  such, 
were  subjected  to  many  and  stringent  tests  by  their 
fellows  in  the  camp,  and  they  always  managed  to  come 
out  by  some  clever  ruse  or  manipulation,  and  to  make 
good.  Again  and  again  they  picked  up  bits  of  informa¬ 
tion  dropped,  which  they  cleverly  weaved  into  elaborate 
stories  and  gave  most  impressive  seances  and  imparted 
most  astonishing  information  to  the  observers  at  these 
amateur  “spook”  circles. 

14.  SPIRIT  MOULDS 

When  in  London,  some  years  back,  I  was  consider¬ 
ably  interested  by  a  group  of  mediums  who  were  then 


112  The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 

\ 

indulging  in  the  art  of  producing  moulds  of  hands, 
arms,  and  other  parts  of  spirit  materializations  cor¬ 
responding  to  some  portion  of  the  human  form  Divine — 
such  as  Doyle  recently  exploited.  These  mediums  were 
then  teaching  that  the  spirits  were  able  to  materialize 
in  our  presence  and  that  they  were  able  thus  to  produce 
paraffine  moulds  of  their  hands,  faces,  feet,  etc.  Their 
preliminary  preparation  for  seances  of  this  sort,  in 
addition  to  producing  an  expectation  on  the  part  of  the 
sitters,  was  to  immerse  a  large  piece  of  paraffine  wax 
in  a  basin  of  hot  water,  placing  this  melting,  floating 
mass  on  a  table  in  front  of  the  cabinet  with  a  basin 
of  cold  water  handy  by.  The  spirits  always  came  out 
from  the  cabinet,  whereupon  they  would  apparently 
dip  their  hands  or  faces  first  into  the  melted  paraffine 
in  the  basin  of  hot  water  and  then  into  the  basin  of 
cold  water,  and  this  would  be  repeated  as  it  seemed  to 
require  three  or  four  dips  in  order  to  accumulate  an 
amount  of  paraffine  sufficiently  thick  to  retain  form. 
After  this  the  spirit  would  stand  up  full  length  before 
the  audience,  and  with  considerable  ceremony  take  the 
mould  from  the  face  or  hand,  as  the  case  might  be, 
and  pass  it  out  to  the  sitters  for  examination. 

In  those  seances  which  I  attended,  this  procedure 
was  carried  out  under  very  strict  guardianship  and  in 
the  faintest  possible  light.  But  like  all  other  hoaxes 
of  this  sort  it  was  destined  to  be  short-lived,  as  it  was 
soon  discovered  that  the  mediums  prepared  in  advance 


Physical  Phenomena 


113 


for  these  seances  by  making  paraffine  masks  from 
plaster  moulds,  so  that  when  these  alleged  spirits  came 
forth  from  the  cabinet  they  had  fitted  over  their  faces 
or  hands  this  previously  prepared  mould,  so  that  in 
reality,  as  subsequent  investigation  disclosed,  they  did 
not  dip  their  faces  or  hands  into  the  hot  paraffine,  but 
they  did  dip  them  into  the  cold  water  so  that  when  the 
spectators  were  given  the  moulds  to  inspect  they  were 
always  wet  and  dripping. 

15.  SPIRIT  PHOTOGRAPHS  AND  PAINTINGS 

It  has  been  my  good  fortune  to  know  one  or  two 
individuals  who  have  become  experts  in  spirit  photog¬ 
raphy — one  who  was  formerly  a  professional  medium, 
and  another  who  dabbled  in  this  thing  as  a  sort  of 
hobby.  From  these  friends  I  had  my  first  insight  into 
some  of  the  numerous  methods  employed  by  spirit 
photographers  in  their  technique  of  deluding  the  public 
in  general,  and  the  faithful  believers  in  particular. 
Among  the  many  methods  employed,  the  following 
may  be  mentioned:  After  a  plate  is  developed  which 
contains  the  portrait,  let  us  say,  of  some  spiritualistic 
believer,  this  negative  if  it  has  placed  under  it  a  sheet 
of  sensitized  paper,  will,  after  it  is  exposed  to  the  rays 
of  the  sun,  exhibit  in  shadowy  outline  a  print  of  the 
original  portrait.  Now  this  same  process  can  be  carried 
out  with  still  another  negative,  allowing  a  shorter  period 
for  the  exposure,  and  this  technique  will  permit  addi- 


114  The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


tional  figures  and  faces  to  appear  in  mystic  and  shadowy 
outline  about  the  original  photograph. 

One  spirit  photographer  of  renown  will  give  you  an 
apparently  innocent  looking  blank  sheet  of  paper,  and 
while  engaged  in  talking  his  mediumistic  babble,  will 
lay  this  blank  piece  of  paper  under  an  ordinary  appear¬ 
ing  blotting  pad  resting  on  top  of  the  table.  The  most 
careful  scrutiny  may  be  maintained  over  this  process 
to  see  that  no  substitution  of  the  paper  is  made,  and 
yet  a  photograph  appears  upon  that  sheet  of  paper 
within  a  few  minutes’  time.  Now,  an  invisible  photo¬ 
graph  was  there  on  the  apparently  blank  piece  of  paper 
all  the  while.  A  picture  had  been  taken  on  this  special 
material,  known  as  solio  paper,  the  image  of  which 
had  been  bleached  out  with  bichloride  of  mercury. 
The  harmless  looking  blotting  pad  resting  on  the  table 
was  moistened  with  a  solution  of  “hypo,”  and  in  this 
way,  in  a  few  short  moments  the  photograph  was 
quite  fully  restored. 

Tricks  of  the  Trade.  Another  medium  can  show  you 
an  ordinary  blank  canvas,  and  without  really  taking 
this  thing  out  of  your  sight  will  be  able  to  produce  a 
beautiful  oil  painting  which  inspection  shows  has  been 
so  recently  done  that  the  paint  is  still  wet.  Now  in 
this  case  the  painting  was  there  all  the  time,  but  a 
blank  canvas  was  neatly  held  in  place  over  it  by  means 
of  a  little  gum,  so  that  all  this  medium  had  to  do  was 
to  divert  your  attention  for  a  moment  and  cleverly  rip 


Physical  Phenomena 


115 


off  the  plain  or  camouflage  canvas.  Spiritualists  are 
always  much  impressed — at  least  they  used  to  be  — 
by  the  fact  that  the  painting  was  wet  at  the  time  it 
was  so  mysteriously  produced.  Many  have  argued  that 
this  constitutes  sufficient  and  abundant  proof  of  gen¬ 
uineness.  So  it  is  very  easy  for  the  spiritualistic  con¬ 
jurors  to  accommodate  them  in  this  superstition,  as  by 
rubbing  a  little  “poppy  oil”  on  these  paintings  they 
appear  to  be  fresh,  or  as  commonly  described  “wet.” 

Doyle's  Spirit  Photographs.  Among  the  many  spirit 
photographs  collected  by  Doyle  and  offered  by  him  as 
proof  in  support  of  the  contention  that  spirit  entities 
can  so  materialize  themselves  as  to  be  subject  to 
photography,  there  is  one  case  that  demands  more  than 
passing  attention.  He  tells  about  having  purchased  a 
plate,  examined  the  camera,  and  how  he  exposed  and 
developed  the  plate  with  his  own  hands.  “No  hands 
but  mine  ever  touched  the  plate,”  he  says.  That  he 
must  have  been  the  subject  of  some  cute  prank,  not¬ 
withstanding  his  impressive  declaration  that  he  so  care¬ 
fully  supervised  the  photographic  technique  in  this  case, 
is  shown  by  his  own  admission,  when  he  feels  called 
upon  further  to  explain,  that  “on  examining  with  a 
powerful  lens  the  face  of  the  ‘extra’  I  have  found  such 
a  marking  as  is  produced  in  newspaper  process  work.” 
Now  it  should  be  explained  to  the  reader  that  the  half¬ 
tones  which  have  been  prepared  for  reproduction  in 
newspapers,  magazines,  or  books,  show,  when  they  are 


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The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


printed,  certain  little  lines  of  dots  when  such  a  printed 
picture  is  examined  under  a  magnifying  glass.  The 
same  thing  is  characteristic  of  lantern  slides;  these  dots 
will  appear  on  the  screen  if  the  picture  has  been  made 
from  a  printed  half-tone  reproduction  of  a  photograph, 
whereas  the  picture  will  be  smooth  and  minus  these 
dots  if  the  lantern  slide  has  been  made  directly  from 
the  photographic  plate. 

Now  Doyle  admits  that  this  picture,  the  taking  of 
which  he  so  stringently  supervised,  shows  these  dots 
which  indicate  that  it  was  made  from  a  magazine  or 
newspaper  reproduction  of  the  original  photograph. 
Doyle  admits  all  this,  and  goes  so  far  as  to  grant  that 
perhaps  his  picture  was  in  some  way  made  from  a 
previous  reprint  of  a  photograph,  but  he  further  main¬ 
tains:  “ However  that  may  be  it  was  most  certainly 
supernormal,  and  not  due  to  any  manipulation  or 
fraud.”  What  an  astounding  conclusion  for  an  in¬ 
telligent  man  to  reach! 

Celluloid  Ghosts.  There  seems  to  be  no  end  to  the 
technical  methods  whereby  a  trick  photographer  can 
produce  the  simulated  spirit  photographs.  One  method 
which  has  been  successfully  employed  is  to  cut  out 
the  figure  of  a  ghost  in  celluloid  or  some  other  trans¬ 
parent  material  and  carefully  attach  it  to  the  lens  of  the 
camera.  After  the  exposure  of  this  technique  others 
produced  a  tiny  ghost  which  could  be  hidden  in  the 
camera  and  projected  through  a  magnifying  glass,  after 


Physical  Phenomena 


117 


the  technique  of  the  common  magic  lantern,  so  that  it 
would  thus  appear  on  the  plate  when  the  same  was 
exposed  in  the  camera. 

Some  years  ago  I  offered  one  hundred  dollars  to  a 
local  spirit  photographer  for  a  spirit  photograph  in 
which  I  would  be  permitted  to  examine  every  step  of 
the  process.  My  proposition  was  accepted  but  when 
I  desired  to  make  an  elaborate  examination  of  the 
camera  before  the  first  step  was  taken,  my  friend  the 
photographer  backed  out.  He  said  my  materialistic 
skepticism  was  of  such  a  rank  order  that  he  feared  it 
would  entirely  inhibit  the  activities  of  the  spirits.  Un¬ 
doubtedly  this  chap  had  a  miniature  ghost  in  his  camera. 

Among  the  older  tricks  of  this  sort  of  trade  was  the 
substitution  of  plates,  and  among  the  newer  methods 
are  those  in  which  the  ghost  is  painted  with  sulphate 
of  quinine  or  other  chemicals  on  the  ground  glass 
screen.  Such  a  figure  would  be  entirely  invisible  when 
dry,  and  would  pass  the  closest  inspection,  as  indeed  it 
has  at  my  hands.  With  such  a  preparation,  all  that  is 
required  is  to  in  some  way  supply  a  little  moisture 
and  then  upon  the  operation  of  the  camera  the  ghost 
figure  will  appear. 

Chemistry  oj  Spook  Painting .  Recently  the  “spook” 
painters  have  worked  out  a  new  technique  for  producing 
invisible  portraits.  They  have  discovered  that  sulpho- 
cyanide  of  potassium  can  be  employed  for  invisible  red, 
that  ferro-cyanide  of  potassium  will  serve  for  blue,  and 


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The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


tannin  for  black.  They  are  thus  able  to  produce  a 
three-color  invisible  photograph  on  a  canvas,  which 
will  stand  the  casual  inspection  of  the  ordinary  sitter. 
These  chemicals  are  all  invisible  when  dry,  but  if  they 
are  gently  sprayed  with  a  weak  solution  of  tincture  of 
iron  the  picture  will  gradually  appear,  and  the  operators 
have  been  very  ingenious  in  methods  whereby  they  will 
place  the  canvas,  while  waiting  for  the  spirit  to  paint 
the  portrait,  in  such  a  unique  position  that  the  spray 
can  be  mechanically  applied;  and  thus  they  are  able 
to  bring  the  picture  before  the  very  eyes  of  the  sitter 
without  having  to  remove  the  canvas  from  the  room 
to  be  sprayed. 

16.  THE  CONCLUSION 

As  far  as  the  physical  phenomena  of  spiritualism  are 
concerned,  what  only  can  be  the  conclusion  of  any 
intelligent,  sound-minded  person  who  has  taken  the 
time  to  investigate  the  subject?  From  the  earlier  per¬ 
formances  of  the  Fox  Sisters  down  to  the  latest  medium 
to  be  exploited  at  the  present  time,  even  the  half¬ 
hearted  and  amateurish  investigations  on  the  part  of 
untrained  observers  have  resulted  in  disclosing  a  con¬ 
tinuous  trail  of  deception  and  fraud.  Whatever  may 
be  said  in  behalf  of  the  claims  regarding  the  “psychic” 
and  more  mental  and  spiritual  aspects  of  spiritualism, 
which  we  have  not  yet  considered,  there  remains  no 
ground — absolutely  no  scientific  basis — for  the  physical 


Physical  Phenomena 


119 


and  materializational  claims  of  modern  spiritualism. 

Many  large  rewards,  both  in  this  country  and  in 
Great  Britain,  still  remain  unclaimed,  which  can  be 
had  any  day  by  any  medium  who  can,  under  fair  test 
conditions,  demonstrate  the  possibility  of  physical 
phenomena  being  produced  by  spirit  agencies.  And 
in  my  opinion  these  rewards  will  remain  unclaimed  as 
the  years  roll  by. 

The  facts  are  that  the  mediums  cannot  stand  the 
test.  Those  engaged  in  the  production  of  physical 
phenomena,  materialization,  etc.,  are  all  deliberate, 
conscious  frauds.  In  twenty-five  years,  I  have  not 
come  in  contact,  in  any  capacity  whatsoever,  with  a 
single  physical  manifestation  medium,  but  what  I  have 
been  able  either  to  detect  the  fraud,  or  impose  those 
conditions  which  would  have  led  to  immediate  detec¬ 
tion,  but  which  were  very  wisely  rejected  by  the 
medium.  That  is,  in  the  case  of  every  medium  we 
have  gone  in  to  investigate  we  have  immediately 
detected  fraud,  or  the  medium  has  declined  further 
investigation  or  flatly  refused  the  fair  and  reasonable 
conditions  imposed. 

I  talked  with  Mr.  Thurston  at  luncheon  one  day 
while  he  was  here  recently.  I  think  he  is  the  greatest 
magician  on  the  stage  today.  He  said  that  it  is  his 
belief  that  all  performances  done  for  money  and  as  a 
commercial  proposition  are  fraudulent. 

No  sooner  does  some  medium  hail  from  a  foreign 


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The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


shore,  or  rise  up  to  eminence  from  our  own  native 
heath,  than  some  shrewd  investigator  effects  her  ex¬ 
posure.  Most  eminent  mediums  are  short-lived — their 
career  is  meteoric.  They  cannot  stand  the  searchlight 
of  truth.  They  are  not  able  to  withstand  the  acid  test 
of  investigation.  Sooner  or  later  our  spirit  idols  fall, 
faith  in  our  favorite  medium  is  shattered,  but  with 
child-like  trust  and  confidence  we  go  forth  in  quest  of  a 
new  idol,saddened  and  somewhat  wiser,  but  none  the  less 
easily  beguiled  into  the  belief  thatj  whereas  one  was 
false,  our  new  find  will  be  true.  And  scores  of  mediums 
who  go  on  successfully  for  a  season,  would  be  exposed 
much  sooner  if  they  were  investigated,  not  by  their 
friends  and  believers  in  the  cult,  as  is  usually  the  case, 
but  by  hard-headed  men  of  scientific  training — by 
those  who  know  the  laws  of  physics,  chemistry  and 
electricity,  and  those  who  habitually  employ  these 
very  tricks  as  a  part  of  their  professional  careers,  as  is 
the  case  with  magicians  and  similar  experts  who  deal 
with  rope-tying,  handcuffs,  and  other  sorts  of  sleight- 
of-hand  performances,  designed  to  mystify  and  enter¬ 
tain  the  public. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  PSYCHIC  PHENOMENA  OF 
SPIRITUALISM 


SPIRITUALISM  is  not  a  matter  which  can  be  finally 
tried  and  adjudged  in  the  experimental  laboratory. 
While  the  investigations  which  I  have  made  into 
spiritistic  phenomena  have  convinced  me  that  prac¬ 
tically  all  so-called  materializations  and  other  trans¬ 
actions  of  the  “seance’'  are  purely  fraudulent  —  sheer 
chicanery  and  trickery — it  is  not  my  intention  to  assert 
that  all  so-called  occult  or  spiritistic  phenomena  are  of 
a  fraudulent  nature.  There  may  be  a  residue  that  will 
have  to  be  accounted  for  otherwise,  but  it  has  never 
been  my  privilege  to  come  in  contact  with  mediums  of 
this  unusual  sort.  Such  genuine  spirit  phenomena,  of 
course,  would  be  beyond  the  pale  of  scientific  investiga¬ 
tion.  They  constitute  problems  for  study  by  the 
theologians  and  philosophers. 


1.  PHANTASY  AND  IMAGINATION 

There  can  be  little  doubt  but  that  certain  human 
beings  possess  a  tremendously  large  “bump”  of  phan¬ 
tasy.  That  is,  they  have  the  day  dreaming  faculty 
developed  to  the  point  where  it  has  acquired  the  pro- 


121 


122 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


portions  of  a  well-nigh  separate  personality.  This  must 
be  the  case  with  many  clairvoyants,  mediums,  and 
other  occult  practitioners.  They  might  be  said  to 
possess  an  automatic  power  of  phantasy — one  that  acts 
quite  independently  of  their  ordinary  mental  processes 
—  and  one  which  forms  its  conclusions  and  formulates 
its  statements  quite  without  the  conscious  knowledge 
of  the  higher  powers  of  such  individuals’  minds. 

As  we  ascend  in  the  realms  of  thought,  we  reach  more 
and  greater  possibilities  of  mental  confusion  and  mind 
deception.  It  is  quite  impossible  for  the  very  young 
child  to  discriminate  between  imagination,  memory, 
and  images.  The  child  of  three  years  will  vividly 
describe  his  meetings  with  lions  and  other  wild  beasts 
in  the  back  yard,  and  may  relate  these  things  as  real 
experiences  which  have  just  happened.  He  is  really 
recalling  the  pictures  of  lions  from  his  story  books,  or 
reviving  the  memory  images  of  the  beasts  observed  at 
the  zoo;  and  many  of  our  mediums  and  clairvoyants 
are  so  constituted  of  mind  that  their  own  subconscious 
plays  the  same  subtle  trick  upon  them.  They  see, 
hear,  feel  and  perceive  things  that  have  not  just  hap¬ 
pened,  as  facts,  and  as  such  portray  them.  These 
experiences  are  the  phantasms  of  a  short  circuited 
memory  acting  under  the  impulse  and  inspiration  of  a 
misguided  imagination. 

In  the  case  of  these  mediums,  the  mind  has  grown 
up  in  some  respects,  but  in  this  particular  feature  they 


Psychic  Phenomena 


123 


have  remained  juvenile,  and  we  all  know  that  the 
younger  we  are,  the  more  active,  vivid  and  uncontrolled 
is  the  imagination  and  phantasy. 

What  is  to  hinder  an  over-developed  phantasy  from 
setting  in  operation  fictitious  feelings  and  impressions 
and,  by  its  well  known  powers  of  reconstruction,  creat¬ 
ing  spiritistic  forms,  unreal  apparitions,  and  the  fan¬ 
tastic  concepts  of  the  spirit  world? 

The  highly  organized  nervous  system  of  a  psychi¬ 
cally  unstable  individual  can  easily  imagine  itself  to 
be  the  hero  of  the  moving  picture  play,  identifying  it¬ 
self  with  all  the  experiences  portrayed  on  the  screen, 
as  indeed  he  will  in  the  case  of  the  public  procession  in 
which  some  prominent  individual,  or  some  hero,  is  on 
parade;  such  individuals  will  imagine  themselves  to  be 
the  hero  and  will  experience  all  the  pleasant  and  grati¬ 
fying  emotions  experienced  by  the  hero  himself.  This 
sort  of  “identification,”  or,  as  it  has  been  termed, 
“wish  evolvement,”  furnishes  the  psychological  inter¬ 
pretation  for  a  vast  number  of  mediumistic  phenom¬ 
ena.  The  mediums  desire  to  be  what  they  profess  to 
be  and  thus,  through  the  mental  processes  of  “pro¬ 
jection,”  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  phantasy  of  “iden¬ 
tification,”  on  the  other,  they  seek  to  bring  about  their 
“wish  evolvement;”  and  thus,  from  the  unlimited 
supply  of  material  in  the  reservoir  of  the  subconscious 
mind  they  bring  forth  those  things  which  complete  the 
picture  and  enable  them,  through  their  clairvoyance 


124 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


and  clair-audience,  to  depict  to  the  devotees  of  spir¬ 
itism  the  images  of  departed  spirits  and  to  hear  mes¬ 
sages  from  another  world. 

Mental  confusion,  crossed  wires,  endocrine  distur¬ 
bances,  and  a  dozen  other  influences,  mental,  chemical, 
and  physical,  not  to  say  spiritual,  may  all  contribute 
to  the  making  of  a  first  class,  sincere,  utterly  self- 
deceived  medium  or  clairvoyant. 

Personality  determines  the  psychic  tendency  of  those 
unique  individuals;  and  we  now  know  that  personality 
is  largely  determined  by  the  secretions  of  the  endocrine, 
or  ductless  gland  system,  of  the  body.  There  is  not 
only  a  psychic  basis  for  spiritualistic  tendencies,  but 
also  an  hereditary  and  a  chemical  basis. 

2.  DETACHED  COMPLEXES 

You  should  understand  that  the  human  mind  is 
represented  by  a  very  intricate  organization  and  group¬ 
ing  of  cells,  which  hold  the  patterns  of  memory  and 
thought,  and  which  are  undoubtedly  formed  after  the 
fashion  of  groups,  systems,  constellations,  and  so  on. 
Now  it  is  known  that  certain  groups  of  mind  cells  or 
systems,  commonly  known  as  complexes ,  may  be  cut  off, 
as  it  were,  from  active  connection  with  the  major 
mental  powers,  and  may  behave  in  an  insubordinate 
manner,  playing  the  role  of  a  psychic  insurgent,  as 
regards  the  mental  life  as  a  whole.  These  detached 
complexes  are  undoubtedly  present  in  some  forms  of 


Psychic  Phenomena 


125 


insanity,  and  they  are  able  to  assert  themselves  in  such 
a  fashion  as  to  cause  the  demented  individual  to  hear 
voices  and  in  many  other  ways  to  disturb  the  mental 
equilibrium. 

It  is  highly  probable  that,  in  some  cases  of  clairvoy¬ 
ants  and  mediums,  we  have  a  mental  condition  that 
actually  borders  on  insanity.  These  individuals  may 
be  suffering  from  a  “complex  detachment”  in  a  very 
mild  degree,  so  that  they  are  able  from  time  to  time 
to  recognize  these  voices  and  other  impressions  that 
come  up  from  this  sort  of  dissociation,  complex  detach¬ 
ment,  or  double  personality  —  or  whatever  name  it 
may  be  called  —  and  they  are,  therefore,  wholly  sin¬ 
cere  when  they  represent  to  others  that  they  have 
heard  these  voices  in  the  mind  as  from  an  outside 
source.  I  am  convinced  that  many  mediums  and  other 
spiritistic  enthusiasts  have  so  persistently  and  suc¬ 
cessfully  built  up  their  “ghost  complexes;”  that  they 
have  so  effectively  come  to  transfer  the  “reality  feel¬ 
ing”  to  these  “spook”  creations  of  their  own  subcon¬ 
scious  mind;  that  they  have  so  ardently  welded  their 
emotions  to  these  spirit  concepts,  that  in  time,  this 
grouping  of  complexes,  having  to  do  with  spirit  be¬ 
liefs  and  desires,  becomes  so  powerfully  entrenched  and 
so  highly  influential  in  the  psychic  life  of  such  individ¬ 
uals  that  they  become  capable  of  instituting  some  sort 
of  psychic  insurrection,  and  come  thus  more  or  less 
fully  to  dominate  the  conscious  life,  opinions,  and  be- 


126 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


havior  of  their  victims. 

An  individual  may  bury  certain  unwelcome  ideas  or 
unpleasant  emotions  in  his  subconscious,  from  whence, 
as  time  passes,  they  may  come  forth  again  to  plague 
and  harrass  him.  So  may  the  mediums  and  clairvoy¬ 
ants,  as  the  years  pass,  bury  things  in  their  sub¬ 
conscious  minds,  from  whence  these  long  forgotten 
ideas  and  emotions  may  constantly  spring  forth  during 
the  spirit  seance  to  impersonate,  through  the  process 
of  “projection”  and  the  technique  of  “  transference,” 
the  person,  mannerisms,  and  voices  of  dead  and  de¬ 
parted  human  beings. 

3.  COMPLEX  DISSOCIATION 

Now  it  is  believed  that  some  individuals  possess  such 
a  power  of  dissociation,  in  connection  with  a  peculiar 
and  uncanny  concentration  of  the  attention,  that  at 
any  one  moment  the  whole  stream  of  consciousness 
may  be  so  directed  and  so  successfully  diverted  that 
the  “feeling  of  reality”  —  the  sense  of  reality  —  may 
be  so  focused  upon  a  single  idea  or  desire  as  to  shut 
every  other  sensory  feeling  or  emotional  experience  out 
of  the  mind’s  eye,  or  the  awareness  of  consciousness; 
and  thus  the  whole  psychic  machinery  would  be  con¬ 
centrated  upon  this  single  idea  of  the  mind.  In  this 
way,  psychologists  believe  that  mediums  sometimes 
come  to  materialize  disembodied  spirits  in  the  eyes  of 
their  own  minds,  to  become  —  mind,  body,  and  soul  — 


Psychic  Phenomena 


127 


possessed  with  the  reality  of  the  thing  which  they  think 
they  see  outside  of  their  minds,  but  which,  in  reality, 
lives  and  functions  on  the  threshold  of  their  own 
psychic  life  and  which  had  its  inception,  origin,  and 
birth  within  their  own  subconscious  mind. 

In  the  presence  of  this  temporary  sort  of  complex 
dissociation,  it  would  appear  that  in  the  case  of  these 
highly  suggestible  individuals,  that  some  sort  of  domi¬ 
nating  and  all-pervading  idea  —  now  free  from  natural 
restraints  and  customary  restrictions  —  sweeps  through 
the  mind  and  out  over  the  body,  completely  dominat¬ 
ing  and  absolutely  controlling  the  organism  to  such  an 
extent  as  to  be  able  to  produce  cramps,  paralyses,  and 
fits,  as  regards  the  body;  while,  in  a  mental  way,  the 
patient  may  become  as  one  possessed  of  the  devil  on 
the  one  hand,  while  on  the  other  hand  she  may  estab¬ 
lish  herself  as  a  spiritualistic  medium,  or  she  may  go 
forth  in  some  noble  and  daring  role  as  did  the  heroic 
Maid  of  Orleans. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  minds  of  many  so- 
called  mediums  are  striking  illustrations  of  that  dissoci¬ 
ation  among  groups  of  conscious  mental  processes  — 
they  verge  on  actual  hysteria  and  double  personality. 
In  so  far  as  this  is  the  case,  one  must  in  fairness  admit 
that  such  a  medium  is  not  fundamentally  (I  mean 
morally)  a  fraud,  but  rather  the  subject  of  an  elu¬ 
sive,  functional  disorder,  and  at  the  same  time  clever 
enough  to  capitalize  the  disorder  and  make  it  provide 


128 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


the  necessaries  of  life.  In  whatever  instances  this  is 
the  case,  the  so-called  messages  from  the  dead  are 
made  up  of  the  more  or  less  coherent  trains  of  ideas 
that  troop  in  from  the  marginal  consciousness  in  re¬ 
sponse  to  those  suggested  ideas  which  come  into  the 
medium’s  attention  when  he  or  she  is  in  a  state  of  semi- 
or  complete  trance. 

4.  THE  SUBCONSCIOUS  MIND 

The  subconscious  mind,  like  the  atomic  theory,  is  a 
splendid  and  practical  working  concept,  whether  it 
really  exists  or  not.  One  thing  we  are  sure  of —  the 
thing  which  it  stands  for  is  an  actual  part  of  our  mental 
life.  While  sensations  can  produce  ideas,  it  must  also 
be  borne  in  mind  that  ideas  can  produce  sensations. 

It  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  the  possibilities  of 
mind  deception,  extending  from  the  mental  delusions 
of  fictitious  physical  disease  to  the  consummate  decep¬ 
tions  of  spiritualistic  phantasms,  that  would  be  made 
possible  by  a  working  conspiracy  between  imagina¬ 
tion,  phantasy,  and  memory,  when  all  three  of  these 
powers  are  unstable  from  heredity  or  irritated  and 
diseased  by  a  poisoned  blood  stream. 

It  is  my  opinion  that  much  of  the  psychology  of 
clairvoyants  and  spirit  mediums  takes  place  out  in  the 
dim  consciousness  of  the  marginal  state.  That  is,  these 
spirit  manifestations,  in  their  ideas  and  images,  origi¬ 
nate  in  the  subconscious  mind,  much  as  the  phantasms  ' 


Psychic  Phenomena 


129 


of  the  dream  world  originate  during  the  night  season, 
when  the  higher  reasoning,  the  logical,  analytical  and 
conscious  centers  of  the  brain  are  asleep  —  dead  to  the 
world. 

Unquestionably  the  seance  room,  as  conventionally 
conducted,  constitutes  a  very  favorable  setting  —  one 
which  is  in  every  way  calculated  to  encourage  the 
emergence  of  visual  or  auditory  hallucinations  from 
the  realms  of  the  unconscious.  These  no  sooner  appear 
than  the  expectant  attitude  of  both  medium  and  spec¬ 
tator  disposes  them  early  to  transfer  to  these  children 
of  subconscious  creation  that  “feeling  of  reality,” 
which  justifies  the  consciousness  from  that  time  on  in 
its  recognition  and  reception  of  these  phenomena  as  a 
bona  fide  experience. 

Hysterical  patients,  in  a  former  generation,  were 
burned  at  the  stake  as  witches.  Today  they  preside 
over  parlor  seances  and  perform  as  spirit  mediums. 
And  today,  as  in  olden  times,  their  performances  are 
characterized  by  falsehood  and  duplicity,  as  well  as  by 
a  continuous  series  of  impersonations.  It  should  be 
remembered  that  hysterical  women  are  not  only  able 
to  impersonate  serious  diseases  of  the  body  in  their 
attacks,  but  that  they  are  equally  gifted  in  psychologic 
legerdemain,  in  that  they  are  able  to  impersonate,  and 
otherwise  make  representations  to  onlookers,  the  spirits 
of  departed  human  beings. 


130 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


5.  THE  PHYSIOLOGY  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

In  the  mind  of  the  primitive  savage  it  constitutes  but 
a  short  step  in  reasoning  (from  his  dream-experiences), 
to  lead  to  the  belief  that  his  “consciousness”  could  be 
absent  from  the  body,  and  so  these  two  ideas  put  to¬ 
gether —  or  rather,  the  one  growing  out  of  the  other 
—  lead  the  primitive  mind  to  believe  in  “conscious¬ 
ness”  separate  and  apart  from  the  physical  body,  and 
thus  the  foundation  is  securely  laid  for  a  belief  in 
spiritism.  Dreams  seem  to  endow  the  mind  with  a 
power  that  is  quite  independent  of  time  and  space, 
and  the  fancies  of  the  dream  world  are  not  wholly  un¬ 
like  those  extraordinary  claims  and  superstitions  of  the 
spirit  medium. 

As  far  as  psychology  is  concerned  —  the  physical 
sciences  —  there  is  no  spirit.  Spiritual  forces  are  not 
able  to  manifest  themselves  to  the  instruments  em¬ 
ployed  ip  scientific  investigation.  They  are  imma¬ 
terial,  and  science  deals  only  with  the  material. 

Science  comes  more  and  more  to  look  upon  that 
which  lays  claim  to  being  supernatural,  or  spiritual,  in 
the  performance  of  spirit  mediums,  as  being  an  emana¬ 
tion  from  the  unconscious  realms  of  the  medium’s  own 
mind,  and  that  the  entire  performance  is  subject  to 
natural  explanation  by  the  laws  of  physio-psychology; 
that  the  laws  of  physiology  on  the  one  hand,  and  of 
psychology,  on  the  other,  are  adequate  quite  fully  to 
explain  these  apparently  supernatural  phenomena. 


Psychic  Phenomena 


131 


The  very  nature  of  the  content  of  these  spirit  messages 
and  revelations  is  sufficient  to  brand  them  as  wholly 
human,  and  in  every  way  very  ordinary  and  utterly 
devoid  of  any  ear-marks  of  that  superiority  which 
would  in  any  way  serve  to  class  them  as  extraordinary 
or  identify  them  as  supernatural. 

Spiritualism  panders  to  that  egotistic  human  desire 
for  excitement  and  adventure.  The  average  man  likes 
to  dabble  with  the  extraordinary.  We  tend  to  over¬ 
look  the  remarkable  nature  of  the  common  occurrences 
of  everyday  life,  and  we  long  to  make  contact  with  big 
things  and  unusual  events.  We  enjoy  the  exhilaration 
of  talking  through  the  air;  wireless  telephony  and  radio 
appeal  to  our  imagination;  and  we  long  to  project  the 
experiment  one  step  further  —  to  hoist  our  spiritual 
aerials  and  get  the  wireless  waves  from  other  worlds. 
The  one  seems  little  more  impossible  than  the  other, 
that  is,  provided  we  but  lead  ourselves  to  admit  the 
existence  of  a  spiritual  world  and  the  reality  of  spiritual 
forces. 


6.  THE  FEAR  OF  DEATH 

The  biology  of  spiritualism  is  rooted  in  the  pain- 
pleasure  complex  of  the  human  mind  and  nervous 
system.  For  numerous  reasons,  the  primitive  mind  of 
the  savage  fears  death.  Death  is  usually  preceded  or 
accompanied  by  pain  and  suffering.  Death  spells  the 
extinction  of  all  possibility  of  pleasure  enjoyment,  and 


132 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


therefore  death  becomes  the  symbol  —  the  goal,  or  cul¬ 
mination  —  of  suffering,  agony  and  pain.  It  becomes 
the  central  idea  that  stands  for  cessation  of  pleasure, 
and  therefore,  the  primitive  mind,  on  the  basis  of  the 
desire  to  avoid  pain  and  experience  pleasure,  desires  in 
every  way  possible,  in  its  efforts  to  survive  the  fear  of 
death,  to  prove  the  unreality  —  the  non-existence  — 
of  death.  And  so  the  unconscious  mind  of  even  the 
primitive  tribes  reaches  out  with  a  persistent  longing 
to  grasp  any  and  all  evidences  and  proofs  that  would 
tend  to  strengthen  the  belief  of  spirit  survival  after 
death,  and  thus  directly  and  indirectly,  in  every  way 
possible,  to  prove  that  death  is  but  an  illusion  —  but 
the  vestibule  to  another  world  —  the  veil  behind  which 
occurs  the  birth  of  another  existence  into  a  new  and 
higher  life. 

We  are  thus  coming  to  that  place  where  we  are  able 
clearly  to  recognize  that  the  key  to  spiritualism  —  that 
is  to  the  non-fraudulent,  non-materialistic  phase  of 
the  phenomena  —  is  to  be  found  in  the  physiology  of  the 
unconscious.  Here  in  this  mysterious  realm  of  the 
human  intellect  are  locked  up  the  secrets  and  mysteries 
of  mediumship,  clairvoyance,  trances,  automatic  writ¬ 
ing,  and  other  of  the  real  and  respectable  manifesta¬ 
tions  of  modern  spiritualism. 

7.  WHAT  IS  A  SPIRIT? 

Physiology  is  the  key  by  which  we  will  open  the  psycho - 


Psychic  Phenomena 


133 


logical  lock  which  will  enable  us  to  begin  our  explorations 
of  the  secret  birthplace  and  lodgement  of  the  human  well- 
springs  of  modern  spiritualism. 

What  then  is  a  spirit?  I  would  offer  two  definitions: 

1.  Spirit,  in  a  theological  sense,  is  an  invisible,  non¬ 
material  entity,  or  intelligence,  operating  in  the  spirit¬ 
ual  world  in  accordance  with  spiritual  laws  and  for  the 
accomplishment  of  spiritual  purposes;  and  limited,  in 
its  contact  with  the  human  mind,  to  the  making  of 
spiritual  suggestions  and  to  communicating  with  the 
spiritual  monitors  which  are  assumed  to  indwell  the 
human  mind.  The  proof  of  their  existence  must  ever  be 
without  the  pale  of  science,  and  their  recognition  is 
purely  and  wholly  a  matter  of  belief.  Their  contem¬ 
plation  is  a  matter  of  faith,  and  their  reality  and  exist¬ 
ence  are  not  for  scientific  investigation. 

2.  Spirits,  as  recognized  and  studied  by  science,  as 
pertaining  to  mediumship  and  the  phenomena  of 
modern  spiritualism,  are  psychic  projections  —  fan¬ 
tastic  creations  of  the  subconscious  mind.  They  have  a 
biologic  origin;  they  are  the  deceptive  offspring  of  a 
working  conspiracy  between  the  physiological  and 
psychological  powers  resident  in,  and  operating  upon 
the  deep  and  unknown  deposits  of  human  sensation, 
memory  and  emotions,  which  we  commonly  call  the 
subconscious  mind,  but  which  is  more  properly  and 
scientifically  known  as  “the  great  Unconscious. ” 

The  spirits,  then,  that  we  deal  with  so  largely  in  the 


134 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


study  of  spiritualism,  exist  within  the  human  body, 
and  from  the  realms  of  the  unconscious  centers  of  the 
mind  project  themselves  outward  for  the  production 
of  their  phenomena.  They  do  not  exist  without  the 
body  and  come  in  to  possess  the  body,  and  thus  work 
upon  the  mind  as  an  extraneous  spiritual  force.  In 
brief,  as  far  as  science  has  been  able  to  discover,  the 
spirit  operating  in  connection  with  occult  manifes¬ 
tations  functions  only  in  connection  with  the  body,  and 
so  far  science  has  not  been  brought  face  to  face  with 
any  phenomena  that  cannot  be  adequately  explained 
on  this  hypothesis,  or  that  cannot  be  reproduced  by 
psychic  manipulations  and  in  accordance  with  natural 
laws. 

Science,  therefore,  makes  two  challenges  to  the  spir¬ 
itualist,  and  they  are  as  follows: 

1.  That  the  existence  of  a  spirit  separate  and  apart 
from  the  body,  operating  to  produce  spiritualistic  phe¬ 
nomena,  is  as  yet  unproved.  The  scientist  calls  for 
further  proof —  science  asks  for  evidence. 

2.  Science  challenges  the  ability  of  spirits,  the  pro¬ 
jections  of  the  subconscious  mind,  to  affect  any  human 
body  with  vrhich  it  is  not  connected,  except  as  through 
the  ordinary  agencies  of  suggestion  and  other  wrell- 
known  channels  of  psychic  influence. 

8.  WHY  ARE  MEDIUMS  NECESSARY? 

The  spiritualists  tell  us  that  mediums  are  necessary 


Psychic  Phenomena 


135 


for  the  same  reason  that  you  have  to  have  copper  wire 
to  conduct  electricity;  you  cannot  conduct  it  through  a 
board  fence.  They  tell  us  we  cannot  do  it  on  our  own 
hook,  we  have  to  have  peculiar,  sensitive  mediums. 
You  see  our  preparatory  training  has  built  up  in  us  the 
idea  that  special  people  can  do  special  things  and  it  is 
very  easy  to  make  us  believe  this  theory  about  spirit 
mediums. 

The  psychic  laws  regulating  this  thing  are  based  on 
what  we  call  “complex  formations.”  The  brain  cells  in 
the  human  body  are  organized  on  the  principle  of  the 
solar  system.  And  these  things  can  become  disso¬ 
ciated  so  that  you  can  have  one  part  of  your  mind  talk 
with  the  other  part.  You  know  how  one  part  of  your 
mind  can  be  so  engrossed  in  thought,  that  you  can  read 
two  pages  and  never  know  it,  never  have  the  slightest 
recollection  of  what  you  read.  We  do  these  things  and 
they  are  perfectly  normal  and  natural.  If  you  can 
keep  your  thoughts  centered  on  spiritualism  you  are 
all  right,  but  if  you  go  too  far  with  them,  we  will  put 
you  in  a  blue  wagon  and  haul  you  off  to  the  psychopa¬ 
thic  hospital.  Just  as  long  as  you  say  you  hear  a  spirit 
talking  to  you  you  can  get  away  with  it;  but  as  soon 
as  you  say  you  hear  voices  and  see  things  they  will  put 
you  in  an  asylum.  One  leads  to  affluence  and  a  large 
income,  and  the  other  incarcerates  you. 

Not  only  do  wre  find  more  women  functioning  as 
mediums,  as  compared  with  men,  but  we  find  instruc- 


136 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


tion  from  the  spirit  world  explaining  that  women  are 
better  mediums  than  men. 

The  spiritualists  claim  that  women  are  less  likely  to 
be  mercenary  than  men.  They  further  tell  us  that  the 
spiritual  world,  inferring  at  least  some  degree  of  ma¬ 
teriality,  is  much  more  beautiful  than  our  world,  and 
one  writer  goes  on  to  describe,  in  superlative  terms, 
their  rivers,  lakes,  and  oceans,  their  beautiful  cities  and 
homes;  and  explains  that  a  woman’s  finer  sense  and 
more  artistic  tendency  is  more  easily  brought  into 
sympathetic  contact  with,  and  more  highly  apprecia¬ 
tive  of,  those  things,  and  therefore  serves  as  the  better 
channel  between  the  higher  spiritual  and  lower  ma¬ 
terial  worlds. 

So  far  as  my  personal  experience  goes,  I  have  never 
detected  anything  in  the  line  of  mediumship,  thus  far, 
which  would  call  for  a  resort  to  a  spiritual  hypothesis 
for  explanation.  I  have  met,  in  my  practice,  peculiar 
psychic  cases,  some  of  which  I  have  not  been  able  fully 
to  understand  in  the  light  of  physiologic  and  psycho¬ 
logic  laws,  but  as  before  stated,  none  of  these  have 
been  mediums,  and  in  no  case  did  they  claim  to  commu¬ 
nicate  with  the  dead. 

In  ordinary  psychic  experience,  when  disjunction 
occurs  in  the  mind  —  when  a  constellation  of  com¬ 
plexes  inaugurate  an  insurrection  and  try  to  set  up 
business  for  themselves,  they  usually  seek  to  displace 
the  real  self —  to  supplant  the  actual  ego  of  the  per- 


Psychic  Phenomena 


137 


sonality  —  and  thus  establish  themselves  in  the  place 
of  power,  and  immediately  to  assume  control  of  the 
mental  actions  and  nervous  behavior  of  the  individual. 
This  is  what  we  see  taking  place  in  hysteria.  Now,  it 
seems  that  in  the  case  of  the  medium,  this  disjuncted, 
or  insubordinate,  minor  personality,  instead  of  crossing 
swords  with  the  reigning  ego  of  the  psychic  realm, 
rather  chooses  to  establish  itself  as  a  separate  entity 
—  as  a  minor  personality,  distinct  and  separate  from 
the  mind  and  ego  of  its  origin.  Thus  it  professes  to  be 
foreign  to  the  real  self  of  the  individual,  alleging  that 
it  is  an  outside  entity,  often  a  discarnate  spirit,  present 
from  a  higher  and  invisible  world. 

How  easy  for  this  detached  group  of  psychic  com¬ 
plexes  to  take  one  step  further,  after  organizing  itself 
into  a  subconscious  source  of  feeling  and  information, 
to  relegate  to  itself  the  prerogatives  of  a  departed  spirit, 
and  to  palm  itself  off  on  the  credulous  and  superstitious 
mind  of  its  indwelling  as  a  “spirit  control,”  as  the  dis¬ 
carnate  spirit  of  some  departed  friend  or  relative  of 
recent  times,  or  the  disembodied  ego  of  some  prince  or 
hero  of  olden  days.  So  our  new  personality,  so  mys¬ 
tically  set  up  in  business,  proceeds  to  borrow  the  mind 
and  muscles,  the  talking  mechanism  of  the  medium,  as 
a  means  of  expression  on  this  so-called  material  plane 
to  which  it  has  returned  for  various  alleged  benevolent 
purposes. 


138  The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 

9.  THE  TECHNIQUE  OF  “  PROJECTION  ” 

“Projection”  is  the  technique  of  reversing  the 
physiology  of  the  conduction  of  sensory  impulses  from 
the  body  to  the  brain,  there  to  form  ideas,  images, 
memories,  etc.  In  “projection”  this  process  is  re¬ 
versed  —  ideas  and  images  are  aroused  in  the  mind  and 
from  there  travel  outward  and  are  recognized  through 
the  sense  organs  as  having  had  origin  outside  the  body. 
Ordinarily,  our  visual  images  and  our  auditory  sounds 
go  with  the  feelings  and  emotions  which  they  arouse 
and  which  accompany  them,  for  registration  and  atten¬ 
tion  in  the  archives  of  memory;  I  say  ordinarily  these 
sights  and  sounds,  as  well  as  other  sensory  impressions, 
originate  outside  of  the  body  as  the  result  of  its  contact 
with  the  external  and  material  world. 

Now,  if  we  imagine  a  reversal  of  this  process  —  that 
instead  of  these  symbols  of  material  things,  these  sights 
and  sounds  originating  without  the  mind  and  external 
to  it,  and  passing  in  as  sensory  impressions  from  the 
nervous  system  to  the  brain,  to  be  there  recognized  by 
the  mind  and  therein  to  be  recorded  and  retained  as 
memories  —  if  we  can  imagine  a  reversal  of  this  process 
so  that  we  would  have  arising,  down  in  the  unconscious 
centers  of  the  mind,  various  memory  images  and  sounds 
which  would  travel  outward  over  the  nerves  to  the 
center  of  hearing  and  vision,  there  to  be  recognized, 
there  in  reality  to  appear  just  as  if  they  had  come  from 
without  in  the  normal  manner  (and  as  they  no  doubt 


Psychic  Phenomena 


139 


originally  did  arise  before  they  were  buried  in  the  for¬ 
gotten  regions  of  the  unconscious),  then  you  will  have 
a  picture  in  your  mind  of  the  technique  of  projection . 
Your  imagination  need  go  but  one  step  farther  —  to 
throw  these  sounds  and  images  from  the  seeing  and 
hearing  centers  of  the  mind,  out  of  the  body  into  the 
external  world,  and  you  have  the  foundation  all  laid 
for  perfect  hallucination.  In  this  way  an  hysterical  in¬ 
dividual,  a  spiritualistic  medium,  or  insane  person,  will 
be  able  to  see  and  hear  things  that  do  not  exist  —  that 
is,  that  do  not  exist  in  the  external  world  —  and  they 
are  not  discoverable  except  to  those  people  who,  from 
whatever  cause,  are  “seeing  things”  and  “hearing 
things.” 

This  sort  of  “projection”  is,  to  a  certain  extent, 
normal  to  all  of  us,  and  is  no  doubt  unconsciously  prac¬ 
ticed  (to  a  limited  degree)  by  most  of  us.  Occasionally 
we  run  across  an  individual  who  has  become  a  victim 
of  this  sort  of  thing  in  one  particular  phase  of  his  life. 
He  is  thoroughly  sane  and  rational  in  every  other  ave¬ 
nue  of  thought,  but  on  some  one  thing  he  has  become  a 
monomaniac.  He  hears  and  sees  things  that  are  not 
real,  his  mind  is  not  controlled  by  reason  and  is  not 
dominated  by  logic  in  this  particular  realm  of  thought, 
as  in  all  others  and  when  this  is  well  marked  and  classic, 
we  say  that  such  a  patient  has  paranoia. 

We  are  quite  likely  to  project  some  of  our  own  fears 
and  feelings  on  other  people  —  it  is  notorious  that  we 


140 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


have  a  tendency  to  judge  other  people  by  ourselves. 
We  judge  many  of  our  own  acts  by  the  way  in  which 
we  think  our  friends  and  neighbors  would  judge  us. 
Our  standards  of  morality  are  largely  those  that  are 
“projected”  from  the  consciences  of  other  people  upon 
us.  We  are  influenced  by  tribal  standards;  we  are 
governed  largely  by  fashion;  we  regulate  our  lives  in 
accordance  with  convention;  we  are  constantly  inter¬ 
changing  ideas  and  feelings,  emotions  and  reactions, 
between  ourselves  and  other  people. 

Origin  and  Nature  of  Projection,  It  would  seem  that 
primitive  people  —  savages  —  were  wont  to  project 
their  ideas  and  emotional  reactions  on  a  great  variety 
of  things,  both  animate  and  inanimate,  and  so  these 
simple  children  of  Nature  came  to  endow  rocks,  clouds, 
rivers,  not  to  mention  the  sun,  moon  and  stars,  with 
spirits  and  various  supernatural  attributes  as  shown  by 
the  superstitious  beliefs  of  ancient  peoples,  as  well  as 
the  highly  organized  mythology  of  the  Greeks  and 
other  olden  tribes.  As  the  race  developed  it  was  ob¬ 
served  that  animals  breathed,  and  then  the  savage  saw 
the  mist  arise  from  the  waterfall,  looking  not  unlike 
the  condensation  of  his  breath  on  a  frosty  morning. 
How  easy  for  the  primitive  mind  to  reason  that  the 
waterfall  had  a  spirit  as  shown  in  the  mist  floating  from 
the  plunging  waters.  And  so,  later  on,  the  trees  were 
endowed  with  spirits,  and  the  whole  primitive  psy¬ 
chology  of  a  spirit  world  was  built  up  —  which  still 


Psychic  Phenomena 


141 


clings  to  the  human  mind  and  infests  the  human  con¬ 
sciousness,  predisposing  in  such  a  deep-seated,  patho¬ 
logical  fashion,  the  men  and  women,  even  of  a  civilized 
day  and  generation,  to  the  sophistries  and  vagaries  of 
spiritualism. 


10.  THE  “REALITY  FEELING” 

Thus  we  see  that  in  certain  peculiar  types  and  tem¬ 
peraments  the  “reality  feeling”  works  very  well  in 
connection  with  the  clairaudient  state  —  automatic 
hearing.  And  it  is  easy  to  suppose  that  in  a  seance 
many  individuals  whose  minds  are  attuned  —  who  are 
en  rapport  as  the  professionals  call  it  —  would  be  able 
to  see  and  hear  the  same  things  the  medium  would.  It 
is  a  sort  of  collective  sensation,  or  collective  illusion  — 
some  one  has  called  it  “collective  hypnotism.” 

Every  now  and  then  some  one  arises  who  attempts  to 
make  other  people  believe  in  the  things  which  they  see 
and  hear  in  their  own  minds.  Self-styled  “prophets” 
arise  to  convince  us  of  the  reality  of  their  visions.  Odd 
geniuses  appear  who  tell  us  of  the  voices  they  hear,  and 
if  they  seem  fairly  sane  and  socially  conventional  in 
every  way,  they  are  sometimes  able  to  build  up  vast 
followings,  to  create  cults  and  establish  churches; 
whereas,  if  they  are  too  bold  in  their  imaginings,  if 
they  see  a  little  too  far  or  hear  a  little  too  much,  they 
are  promptly  seized  and  quickly  lodged  safe  within  the 
confines  of  an  insane  asylum. 

J 


142 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


When  an  individual  has  a  great  variety  of  these 
visualizations,  and  when  he  hears  too  many  voices,  we 
readily  drag  him  from  his  pedestal  as  prophet  or  high 
priest  of  spiritualism,  haul  him  before  a  sanity  com¬ 
mission,  adjudge  him  insane  and  confine  him  in  the 
crazy  house.  That  is  the  penalty  of  allowing  his  “feel¬ 
ing  of  reality’"  to  once  gain  possession  of  the  human 
intellect,  of  indulging  in  the  failure  to  discriminate  be¬ 
tween  the  creatures  of  consciousness  and  the  creatures 
of  the  material  world,  in  the  practical  affairs  of  life. 

If  we  intently  believe  anything,  if  we  ardently  will 
to  believe  a  certain  thing,  it  greatly  helps  us  in  trans¬ 
ferring  our  memory  images  and  our  imaginative  crea¬ 
tions  of  the  mind  from  one  psychic  association  to 
another;  that  is,  to  transfer  the  “feeling  of  reality,” 
which  belongs  to  an  external  visual  sense,  to  an  associa¬ 
tion  that  is  purely  and  properly  a  visual  image  of  con¬ 
sciousness;  or  to  transfer  a  “feeling  of  reality”  con¬ 
nected  with  the  reception  of  sound  waves  through  the 
external  ear,  to  a  concept  or  sensation  of  sound  which 
is  internal  in  origin,  but  which  is  made  real  to  con¬ 
sciousness  by  such  a  transfer  of  these  emotions  and 
reactions  which  go  by  the  name  of  “reality  feeling.” 

11.  DOUBLE  PERSONALITY 

Double,  or  multiple  personality  (for  sometimes  there 
are  more  than  two)  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  psychic 
phenomena  to  be  described  in  modern  times.  That  an 


Psychic  Phenomena 


143 


individual  may  actually  possess  a  dual  psychic  nature, 
may  actually  be  one  person  one  day  and  another  the 
following,  and  still  a  third  a  few  days  subsequently,  is 
a  fact  now  well  established  in  the  study  of  abnormal 
psychology. 

Interesting  as  it  would  be  further  to  go  into  this  ques¬ 
tion  here,  space  will  not  permit,  and  we  can  only  touch 
upon  it  as  an  illustration  of  the  manner  in  which  some 
sorts  of  psychic  phenomena  may  be  adequately  ex¬ 
plained. 

In  cases  of  double  personality,  individuals  may  wan¬ 
der  off  and  be  under  the  guidance  of  the  subordinate 
personality,  and  then  return,  after  days  or  weeks,  not 
knowing  where  they  have  been  or  what  has  transpired. 
Under  the  influence  of  one  personality,  a  girl  will  go 
into  the  woods  and  gather  garter  snakes  and  bring 
them  home  in  boxes  addressed  to  her  other  personality, 
just  to  witness  the  consternation  of  the  other  indi¬ 
vidual  when  the  wriggling  reptiles  crawled  out  of  the 
box  when  it  was  opened.  One  personality  is  afraid  of 
snakes,  the  other  is  not;  again  one  personality  may  be 
able  to  write  shorthand,  the  other  cannot;  one  may 
speak  French  fluently,  while  the  other  knows  not  a 
word  of  the  language.  Those  are  but  a  few  illustrations 
to  show  how  one  personality  may  know  absolutely 
nothing  of  what  the  other  personality,  dwelling  in  the 
same  mind,  may  say  or  do. 

It  is  my  opinion  that  about  seventy-five  per  cent  of 


144 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


our  commonplace  spiritistic  manifestations  are  frauds 
—  conscious,  deliberate,  commercial  frauds,  and  that 
about  twenty-five  per  cent  belong  to  the  order  which 
we  are  describing  at  this  time,  and  include  the  possible 
cases  of  actual  spiritual  or  supernatural  phenomena, 
which  I,  it  will  be  observed,  all  the  way  along,  accept 
as  possible,  though  I  have  never  personally  come  in 
contact  with  but  one  or  two  cases  that  could  lay  even 
remote  claim  to  falling  into  this  last  named  group. 

What  a  calamity  that  the  uncertain  cerebrations  of 
such  abnormal  minds  should  come  to  be  regarded  by 
such  a  large  number  of  people  as  constituting  informa¬ 
tion  from  a  supernatural  source,  and  wisdom  of  Divine 
origin;  or  that  these  ebullitions  of  automatic,  psychic 
origin  in  the  human  mind,  should  come  to  be  regarded 
by  tens  of  thousands  of  persons  as  communications  from 
the  discarnate  spirits  of  departed  friends  and  relatives. 
The  time  has  certainly  come  to  apply  common  sense 
methods  of  reasoning  to  our  investigations  of  psychic 
phenomena,  and  to  apply  rigid,  sober-minded,  scien¬ 
tific  tests  to  all  men  and  women  who  claim  to  be  chan¬ 
nels  of  either  supernatural  communication,  or  mediums 
through  whom  disembodied  spirits  manifest  themselves 
to  living  men  and  women. 

12.  SOMNAMBULISM 

Perhaps  there  is  little  difference  between  the  per¬ 
formances  of  the  sleep  walker  and  the  phenomena  of 


Psychic  Phenomena 


145 


the  trance  medium.  They  are  each  in  more  or  less  of 
an  unnatural  and  artificial  state  of  mind,  and  are  more 
or  less  automatically  executing  their  various  actions. 

In  other  cases,  when  these  subordinate  personalities 
or  constellations  of  complexes  start  on  a  rampage  they 
exceed  the  limits  of  a  mere  mental  mood,  although 
they  fall  short  of  carrying  their  insurrection  to  the 
point  of  an  independent  existence  such  as  would  be 
exemplified  by  trances,  cataleptic  hysteria,  or  spirit 
voices,  and  then  such  an  individual  experiences  the 
keen  suffering  which  accompanies  the  variegated 
vagaries  of  neurasthenia,  brain  fag,  nervous  exhaus¬ 
tion,  psychasthenia,  etc. 

We  are  all  more  or  less  familiar  with  the  somnam¬ 
bulistic  phenomena  of  the  “sleep  walker;”  how  he  will 
automatically  perform  marvelously  intricate  pedestrian 
feats  while  oblivious  to  all  surroundings,  and  utterly 
unconscious  in  his  own  mind  of  the  things  which  he 
does  as  he  goes  forth  on  these  extraordinary  nocturnal 
strolls.  This  common  phenomenon  is  so  well  under¬ 
stood  that  attention  only  needs  to  be  called  to  it  to 
emphasize  the  fact  that  sleep  walkers  are  unconscious  of 
what  they  are  doing  and  that  they  continue  to  do  it 
exceedingly  well  as  long  as  they  are  not  aroused  from 
their  slumbers,  or  otherwise  molested  in  their  per¬ 
formance. 

Now,  in  the  case  of  numerous  phenomena  connected 
with  abnormal  psychology  in  general  and  with 


146 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


mediumistic  performances  in  particular,  we  have  condi¬ 
tions  that  are  in  every  way  identical  with,  and  anal- 
agous  to,  the  sleep  walker’s  automatic  performances. 
In  the  case  of  the  sleep  walker,  the  subconscious  mind 
is  directing  the  legs  —  the  feet  are  made  to  execute 
the  mandates  of  the  great  unconscious  —  while  in  the 
case  of  automatic  writing  it  is  the  hands  that  have 
fallen  under  the  control  of  the  subconscious  centers. 
In  automatic  talking  the  tongue  and  speaking  centers 
of  the  mind  are  dominated  by  the  unconscious.  In  the 
case  of  hearing  voices  and  seeing  images  of  supposed 
spirits,  we  have  the  same  general  condition  prevailing, 
only  in  these  latter  cases  it  is  the  sense  of  hearing  and 
the  sense  of  sight  that  have  become  in  their  turn  the 
victims  of  subconscious  domination  —  the  subject  of 
this  outward  projection  of  subconscious  machinations. 

An  Interesting  Case .  Not  long  ago  Doctor  Prince 
reported  a  case  of  dissociation,  or  multiple  personality, 
which  is  very  interesting  when  studied  in  the  light  of 
mediumship.  It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  in  these 
cases  of  multiple  personality  the  mind  is  sort  of  split 
up,  or  “fissured,”  after  the  fashion  of  a  tree  with  many 
branches  which  in  turn  are  connected  with  numerous 
similar  sub-branches. 

This  interesting  individual  was  Doris  Fisher,  who 
had  five  personalities  including  the  primary  one.  Be¬ 
fore  the  death  of  her  mother  she  had  at  least  two  or 
three  personalities,  the  uncertainty  being  due  to  the 


Psychic  Phenomena 


147 


fact  that  she  claimed  one  of  her  personalities  was  a 
spirit.  Here  we  have  scientific  proof  of  the  psychic 
origin  of  spirit  entities  in  the  human  intellect.  Here  is 
a  case  which  directly  proves  the  psychic  origin  of  much 
that  appears  in  the  performances  of  modern  spirit 
mediumship. 

t 

13.  AUTOMATIC  WRITING 

The  automatic  talkers  and  writers,  those  who  “speak 
with  tongues,”  etc.,  constitute  the  most  interesting 
group  of  individuals  who  live  their  queer  lives  out  on 
the  borderland  between  the  normal  and  the  abnormal 
in  psychology.  These  individuals  are  very  interesting 
to  study,  from  a  psychologic  standpoint.  I  have 
recently  been  privileged  to  thoroughly  examine  and  care¬ 
fully  study  not  less  than  half  a  dozen  men  and  women 
who  are  supposed  to  have  the  “gift  of  tongues,”  and 
who  are  prominently  identified  with  numerous  present- 
day  religious  movements  that  exhibit  these  gifts  of  the 
spirit  as  evidence  of  Heavenly  authenticity. 

I  have  had  some  very  interesting  experiences  in  con¬ 
nection  with  the  study  of  automatic  writers.  I  re¬ 
member  one  case  which  came  under  my  observation 
some  twenty  years  ago,  and  after  giving  this  man  a 
thorough  course  of  instruction  regarding  the  physiol¬ 
ogy  and  psychology  of  his  strange  performances,  he 
gradually  lost  the  power  of  automatic  writing  and  for 
the  past  six  or  eight  years  has  been  wholly  unable  to 


148 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


indulge  in  this  phenomenon.  Years  ago  he  was  able  to 
take  a  pencil  in  his  hand,  drop  off  into  a  sort  of  passive 
dream-state,  when  suddenly  the  pencil  would  start  in 
to  write  messages,  as  he  supposed,  having  their  origin 
in  the  spirit  world.  In  this  connection  let  me  record 
it  as  my  opinion  that  automatic  writing  and  the  autom¬ 
atism  manifested  in  the  ouija  board  performance  are 
very  nearly,  if  not  quite,  one  and  the  same  thing. 
That  is,  I  regard  them  as  identical  in  their  psychologic 
roots  —  in  their  psychic  origin  and  direction. 

I  have  found  it  exceedingly  difficult  to  segregate  the 
sincere  and  subconscious  automatic  writers  from  those 
performers  whose  writing  is  more  or  less  controlled  — 
those  who  are  to  a  certain  degree  consciously  fraudu¬ 
lent. 

There  seems  to  be  an  inherent  tendency  on  the  part 
of  these  psychic  freaks  and  so-called  “sensitives”  to 
exaggerate  their  gifts  and,  childlike,  magnify  their 
performances.  The  mental  attitude  of  the  medium 
seems  to  be  to  try  and  outdo  other  “psychics,”  and  so 
there  is  ever  present  this  sort  of  urge  to  the  perpetra¬ 
tion  of  fraud. 

Notwithstanding  the  frauds  to  be  found  among  auto¬ 
matic  writers,  there  is,  nevertheless,  a  residue  who  are 
wholly  sincere,  honest  men  and  women  who  believe 
they  are  “spirit  controlled,”  or  that  in  some  other  way 
their  automatic  writings  have  a  spiritual  origin. 


Psychic  Phenomena 


149 


14.  TELEPATHY  AND  MIND  READING 

Telepathy  has  been  variously  called  mind  reading, 
thought  transference,  and  universal  intelligence,  and  it 
has  been  more  associated  with  the  propaganda  of 
spiritualism  in  Great  Britain  than  in  this  country. 
This  is  probably  due  to  the  fact  that  early  in  his  spirit¬ 
istic  investigations  Myers  attached  a  great  deal  of 
importance  to  the  role  of  telepathy  in  connection  with 
various  spiritistic  and  occult  manifestations.  Myers 
was  so  impressed  with  the  province  of  telepathy  in  the 
study  of  spiritualism  that  he  once  stated  that  it  was 
“almost  the  fundamental  doctrine  of  spiritualistic 
philosophy.’’ 

Telepathy  should  not  be  confused  with  alleged  sec¬ 
ond  sight,  intuition,  clairvoyance,  etc.  It  rests  upon 
an  entirely  different  and  separate  hypothesis.  In  this 
connection  it  is  well  to  remind  the  reader  that  these  pe¬ 
culiar  psychic  tendencies  appear  to  run  in  families. 

I  think  the  consensus  of  opinion  among  the  scientists 
today  would  be  that  telepathy  is  merely  a  popular  word 
symbol  which  has  come  into  use  in  explanation  of  cer¬ 
tain  coincidences  which  take  place  between  living  indi¬ 
viduals  and  which  are  to  be  explained  in  two  general 
wavs: 

1.  Chance.  Coincidences,  pure  and  simple. 

2.  Similarity  of  hereditary  predisposition,  or  envi¬ 
ronmental  influences,  either  or  both  of  which  tend  to 
cause  two  individuals  to  think  of  the  same  thing, 


150 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


approximately,  at  the  same  time  and  under  similar 
circumstances. 

In  consideration  of  the  fact  that  hereditary  similarity 
may  account  for  the  apparent  coincidence  of  two  indi¬ 
viduals  in  different  parts  of  the  world  thinking  of  the 
same  thing  at  the  same  time,  we  may  cite  the  many  ex¬ 
periences  recorded  of  identity  of  thought  on  the  part 
of  so-called  “identical  twins.” 

The  Universal  Mind.  This  plausible  hypothesis  of  a 
Universal  Mind  completely  does  away  with  the  assump¬ 
tion  of  the  transfer  of  thought  from  one  finite  mind  to 
another.  There  may  be  a  Universal  Intelligence  whose 
emanations  radiate  to  all  who  are  in  harmony  with  the 
Divine  Mind.  Every  soul  who  is  “in  tune  with  the  In¬ 
finite”  would  enjoy  the  possibility  of  receiving  mes¬ 
sages  and  inspirations  .from  this  Central  Source.  If 
this  is  true,  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  two  minds  may 
have  the  same  thought  at  the  same  time  just  as  two 
wireless  telegraph  stations  which  are  attuned  alike  may 
receive,  at  the  same  time,  the  same  message,  which 
has  been  flashed  from  a  vessel  out  at  sea  many  miles 
from  each  station.  Many  good  people  adhere  to  this 
view  and  derive  comfort  therefrom.  Their  own  inti¬ 
mate  experiences,  they  affirm,  supply  testimony  in  its 
favor. 

Even  the  American  Indian  had  in  his  religion,  the 
“Great  Spirit.”  All  modern  religions  recognize  the 
presence  of  a  universal  spirit.  It  is  a  cardinal  thought 


Psychic  Phenomena 


151 


of  Christianity  that  God  should  pour  out  His  “Spirit 
upon  all  flesh.”  Jesus  told  His  followers  before  His 
death  —  before  He  departed,  that  He  would  send  them 
the  “Comforter,”  the  “Holy  Ghost,”  who  would  teach 
and  guide  them  “into  all  truth.” 

I  am  not  disposed  to  follow  the  deceptive  and  illog¬ 
ical  reasoning  of  the  telepathist  in  order  to  find  an 
explanation  of  these  common  experiences  of  thought 
harmony  and  identity.  We  are  rather  disposed  to 
accept  the  equivalent  of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the 
omnipresent  Spiritual  Mind,  the  doctrine  of  the  Great 
Spiritual  Teacher,  as  a  basis  for  some  of  the  phenomena 
commonly  described  under  the  head  of  telepathy. 

If  such  phenomena  find  their  explanation  either  in 
the  doctrine  of  the  Universal  Mind  or  in  any  other  doc¬ 
trine  which  assumes  the  activity  of  spiritual  forces  in 
their  production,  they,  of  course,  lie  outside  the  realm 
of  physical  science  and  in  that  of  personal  religious  be¬ 
lief;  they  are  problems  in  spiritual  science. 

Mrs.  Piper  and  Thought  Transference.  By  the  time 
Mrs.  Piper  got  into  the  spiritualistic  game  it  was  be¬ 
coming  rather  dangerous  for  mediums  to  indulge  in 
physical  manifestations,  and  so  Mrs.  Piper  stuck  rather 
closely  to  the  direct-voice  mode  of  transmitting  spirit 
messages,  occasionally  indulging  in  performances  that 
bordered  on  the  trance.  Prof.  James  Hyslop,  in  his 
investigation  of  Mrs.  Piper,  was  so  impressed  by  the 
large  number  of  coincidences  —  he  was  so  influenced 


152 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


by  Mrs.  Piper’s  shrewd  guessing  —  that  in  a  published 
report  of  his  sittings  with  this  medium  he  advanced 
the  opinion,  that  no  matter  what  his  ideas  might  be 
about  Mrs.  Piper’s  ability  to  communicate  with  the 
dead,  he  was  sure  of  her  ability  to  communicate  with 
the  minds  of  the  living.  In  one  case  it  was  claimed 
that  Mrs.  Piper  was  able  to  project  a  trans-Atlantic 
communication,  getting  a  message  from  some  living 
mind  in  England,  and  it  was  asserted  that  this  par¬ 
ticular  message  while  started  out  from  Great  Britain 
in  English  was  received  in  this  country  in  Latin,  and 
yet  it  was  claimed  that  Mrs.  Piper  understood  nothing 
of  the  Latin  tongue. 

Most  of  the  investigators  who  studied  Mrs.  Piper, 
if  they  believed  at  all  in  telepathy,  usually  reached  the 
conclusion  that  her  seances  were  largely  to  be  ex¬ 
plained  on  that  hypothesis.  And  so  it  seems  that  the 
theory  of  telepathy  has  become,  in  recent  years,  very 
convenient  to  the  psychic  researcher  as  a  means  of  ac¬ 
counting  for  a  vast  sphere  of  psychic  phenomena 
which,  on  the  one  hand,  the  investigators  cannot  prove 
to  be  fraudulent,  and  which,  on  the  other  hand,  is  not 
sufficiently  evidential  to  establish  its  claim  to  super¬ 
natural  or  spirit  origin. 

I  recently  attended  a  mind  reading  performance  in 
which  I  am  satisfied  that  communications  were  carried 
to  the  medium  by  means  of  radio.  She  wore  a  form  of 
hair  dressing  which  extended  high  upon  her  head,  and 


Psychic  Phenomena 


153 


I  believe  she  had  a  radio  antennae  concealed  within  it, 
and  her  hair  covered  her  ears  in  such  a  manner  that  I 
am  convinced  a  small  watch-case  receiver  could  have 
been  so  concealed  as  to  enable  her  to  hear  messages 
completely.  This  is  the  first  time  I  have  seen  a  medium 
carry  on  such  an  exhibition  and  at  the  same  time  move 
about  the  stage. 

And  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  most  of  these 
demonstrations  are  offered  to  the  public  as  proofs  of 
telepathy. 

Natural  Law  and  Telepathy.  If  telepathy  is  based  on 
natural  laws,  then  any  person  who  would  master  these 
laws  could  practice  telepathy.  If  telepathy  were  based 
on  science,  like  telegraphy,  and  gramophony,  anybody 
could  do  it.  When  radium  was  discovered  by  Curie, 
the  description  of  the  process  of  its  detection  was 
sufficient  to  enable  any  other  chemist,  having  the  same 
materials,  to  secure  the  same  product.  When  Jenner 
published  his  discovery  of  vaccination,  any  other  phy¬ 
sician  could  perform  the  operation.  When  antitoxin 
was  discovered,  every  intelligent  physician  was  in  a 
position  to  use  it  successfully.  When  telepathy  is 
scientifically  proved,  then  can  any  and  all  psycholo¬ 
gists  practise  it.  Natural  laws  are  universal  in  their 
application. 


15.  DREAMS  AND  SPIRITUALISM 

Recently  there  appeared  prominent  mention  in  the 


154 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


daily  press  of  a  case  of  a  railroad  builder  who  claimed 
to  be  under  the  control  of  spirits  in  the  planning  and 
executing  of  his  engineering  feats. 

Mr.  Stilwell  said  that  nearly  all  his  life  he  had  made 
a  secret  of  his  powers,  because  he  feared  that  people 
would  think  him  a  “nut.”  For  years,  however,  some 
of  his  friends  and  many  directors  in  companies  asso¬ 
ciated  with  him,  knew  the  source  of  his  inspiration  and 
believed  in  his  spirits. 

I  am  familiar  with  many  cases  like  this.  I  know  an 
inventor  who  dreams  out  most  of  his  inventions.  I  am 
acquainted  with  an  author  who  dreams  out  the  plans 
for  most  of  his  books  and  the  outlines  of  his  chapters. 
I  have  a  patient,  a  business  man,  who  dreams  out  most 
of  his  financial  deals —  and  they  usually  turn  out  well, 
too.  I  have  myself  dreamed  out  many  a  complicated 
problem,  and  the  solution  of  the  dream  was  very  much 
better  than  the  ones  I  had  worked  out  during  my  wak¬ 
ing  moments.  The  fact  that  dreams  may  “come  true,” 
or  that  the  conclusion  reached  in  the  dream  state  proves 
to  be  valuable  or  serviceable,  in  no  way  connects  the 
dream  life  with  supernatural  forces  or  with  discarnate 
spirits. 

I  want  to  make  it  clear  to  you  that  during  sleep,  the 
subconscious  mind  is  in  full  commission,  in  fact  is  able 
to  act  much  more  freely,  unhampered  by  the  restraints 
and  cautions  of  the  higher  powers  of  reason,  judgment, 
and  logic;  although  it  must  not  be  inferred  that  the 


Psychic  Phenomena 


155 


subconscious  mind  does  not  reason  —  it  does  reason  — 
but  it  reasons  largely  by  deduction,  not  so  much  by  in¬ 
duction. 

We  commonly  meet  with  those  individuals  who 
dream  much  concerning  their  work,  and  they  secure 
many  valuable  suggestions  from  their  dreams  — 
though  they  are  the  exception,  not  the  rule.  The  av¬ 
erage  engineer  who  builds  railroads  by  his  dreams,  or 
by  the  guidance  of  “spooks,”  will  make  a  sorry  mess  of 
the  whole  undertaking;  but  there  are  exceptions,  many 
of  which  I  have  investigated  and  studied.  But  it  is  not 
necessary  to  fall  into  the  arms  of  spiritualism  in  order 
to  understand,  explain,  or  account  for  these  interesting 
and  unusual  occurrences. 

Many  individuals  secure  from  their  dreams  sugges¬ 
tions  just  as  they  would  if  they  reclined  in  a  hammock, 
out  on  a  mountain  side  on  a  summer’s  afternoon,  and 
allowed  the  phantasy  to  run  riot  in  the  mind,  and  as 
they  indulged  in  day  reveries,  permitted  the  marginal 
consciousness  to  push  far  up  into  the  central  conscious¬ 
ness,  and  thus  by  reflection  and  meditation  many  new 
ideas  will  come  trooping  into  the  conscious  mind.  And 
this  is  true,  whether  the  meditations  be  of  the  religious 
sort,  indulged  in  by  the  religious  thinker,  or  whether 
they  be  of  the  mechanical  sort,  indulged  in  by  an  engi¬ 
neer. 

An  Experience  of  My  Own.  I  had  a  friend,  a  phy¬ 
sician*  who  died  a  dozen  years  ago.  W  e  were  very  inti- 


156 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


mate,  and  two  or  three  years  back,  I  well  remember 
very  vividly  dreaming  one  night  of  his  coming  to  me 
and  discussing  quite  minutely  a  certain  article  which  I 
had  in  preparation,  or  which  I  contemplated  preparing. 
The  suggestions  he  gave  me,  or  the  ideas  I  gathered 
from  our  dream  conversation,  were  very  interesting, 
and  on  waking  up  I  jotted  them  down,  feeling  that  I 
really  had  received  a  valuable  “  hunch. ”  In  fact  I 
wrote  the  article  along  this  line,  and  it  proved  to  be 
something  out  of  the  ordinary.  Now  it  would  have  been 
very  easy  for  me  to  have  utilized  this  as  a  demonstra¬ 
tion  of  the  return  of  the  spirit,  of  spirit  control,  and  of 
help  from  the  spirit  land,  would  it  not?  Indeed,  but  for 
two  reasons: 

1.  I  am  not  disposed  to  grab  for  spiritistic  explana¬ 
tions  for  ordinary  physical  and  psychic  phenomena,  and 

2.  After  the  article  was  published,  in  one  of  those 
periodical  housecleanings  that  occur  when  one  goes 
through  the  memoranda  that  accumulate  in  the  desk 
drawers  —  I  subsequently  found  the  outline  for  this 
article  which  had  been  prepared  by  me  and  forgotten, 
and  I  found  that  I  had  outlined  it  almost  exactly  as  my 
departed  medical  friend  discussed  it  with  me  in  my 
dream,  and  yet  I  can  say  I  had  truly  and  wholly  for¬ 
gotten  ever  having  prepared  these  memoranda.  I  had 
written  them  down  while  traveling  on  a  train  one  after¬ 
noon,  en  route  to  Chicago,  and  mislaid  it  and  had  for¬ 
gotten  all  about  it. 


Psychic  Phenomena 


157 


The  psychology  of  my  experience  is  simply  this:  the 
thing  which  I  had  thought  out  in  a  day  reverie  came  up 
again  with  certain  modifications  in  a  night  reverie,  and 
this  night  reverie  happened  to  collide  and  become  con¬ 
fused  with  the  dream  vision  concerning  my  departed 
friend,  and  wrhat  was  more  natural  than  that  he  and  I 
should  talk  over  this,  as  we  had  talked  over  many  sim¬ 
ilar  things  in  life.  And  yet  how  easy,  without  analysis, 
it  would  be  to  proclaim  my  article,  which  was  one  of  the 
most  unique  I  probably  ever  prepared,  as  having  been 
indited  by  supernatural  forces  and  having  been  trans¬ 
mitted  to  me  by  the  spirit  of  my  dead  colleague. 

And  so  one  remarkable  experience  after  another,  as 
related  by  numerous  individuals,  vanishes  into  thin 
air,  when  accurately  analyzed.  And  yet  I  am  frank  to 
say  that  it  would  be  very  difficult  for  me  to  explain  this 
experience  as  I  do,  had  I  not  subsequently  found  the 
forgotten  memoranda  containing  the  outline  for  my 
literary  effort,  as  I  had  prepared  it  several  years  before. 
But  such  an  experience  helps  us  to  understand  some 
others  which  we  are  not  in  a  position  to  analyze  in  the 
fortunate  manner  of  this  particular  experience  of  mine. 

16.  TRANCES  AND  CATALEPSY 

It  is  not  uncommon  for  persons  in  a  cataleptic  trance 
to  imagine  themselves  taking  trips  to  other  worlds.  In 
fact,  the  wonderful  accounts  of  their  experiences,  which 
they  write  out  after  these  cataleptic  attacks  are  over. 


158 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


are  so  unique  and  marvellous  as  to  serve  the  basis  for 
founding  new  sects,  cults,  and  religions.  Many  strange 
and  unique  religious  movements  have  thus  been 
founded  and  built  up.  It  is  an  interesting  study  in 
psychology  to  note  that  these  trance  mediums  always 
see  visions  in  harmony  with  their  own  theological  be¬ 
liefs.  For  instance,  a  medium  who  believed  in  the 
natural  immortality  of  the  soul,  was  always  led  around 
on  her  celestial  travels  by  some  of  her  dead  and  de¬ 
parted  friends.  One  day  she  changed  her  religious 
views  —  became  a  “soul  sleeper,”  and  ever  after  that, 
when  having  trances,  she  was  piloted  about  from  world 
to  world  on  her  numerous  heavenly  trips  by  the  angels; 
no  dead  or  departed  friends  ever  made  their  appearance 
in  any  of  her  visions  after  this  change  in  her  belief. 

Nearly  all  these  victims  of  trances  and  nervous  cata¬ 
lepsy,  sooner  or  later  come  to  believe  themselves  to  be 
messengers  of  God  and  prophets  of  Heaven;  and  no 
doubt  most  of  them  are  sincere  in  their  belief.  Not 
understanding  the  physiology  and  psychology  of  their 
afflictions,  they  sincerely  come  to  look  upon  their  pe¬ 
culiar  mental  experiences  as  something  supernatural, 
while  their  followers  blindly  believe  anything  they 
teach  because  of  the  supposed  divine  character  of  these 
so-called  revelations. 

As  far  as  my  actual  experience  goes,  as  far  as  I  have 
personally  been  able  to  test  and  observe  those  who  have 
trances,  visions,  and  other  seizures  or  experiences  of 


Psychic  Phenomena 


159 


this  sort,  I  have  not  yet  contacted  with  a  case  in  which 
I  could  not,  after  a  thorough-going  psychologic  re¬ 
search  and  painstaking  physical  examinations,  deter¬ 
mine  fully  —  at  least  to  my  own  satisfaction  —  those 
various  psychic,  chemical  and  physical  influences 
which  quite  fully  accounted  for  their  unusual  and  ex¬ 
traordinary  behavior. 

Another  most  interesting  phenomenon  I  have  no¬ 
ticed  in  connection  with  trance  mediums,  who,  as  pre¬ 
viously  remarked,  are  in  the  majority  of  cases  women, 
is  that  these  trance  or  cataleptic  phenomena  which  in 
some  respects  are  very  similar  to  attacks  of  major  hys¬ 
teria  —  only  carried  out  still  further  —  I  say,  it  has 
been  my  experience  that  they  usually  make  their  ap¬ 
pearance  after  adolescence  has  been  established,  and  in 
no  case  which  I  have  observed,  or  of  which  I  have 
known,  have  these  phenomena  ever  survived  the  ap¬ 
pearance  of  the  menopause.  The  character  of  the  phe¬ 
nomena  associated  with  these  female  prophets  or 
trance  mediums  is  always  modified  by  the  appearance 
of  the  “change  cf  life.” 

17.  HYPNOTISM  AND  PSYCHOANALYSIS 

From  our  study  of  hypnotized  subjects  and  trance 
mediums  we  conclude  that  the  subconscious  mind 
would  be  able  to  pass  a  very  satisfactory  Binet  Simon 
test,  and  in  many  cases  to  take  a  stiff  civil  service 
examination.  If  a  subconscious  mind — a  marginal  con- 


160 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


seriousness,  or  whatever  other  name  it  may  be  called 
—  holds  its  memory  material  in  such  an  organized 
form  as  to  manifest  such  a  high  degree  of  intelligence 
it  should  not  be  difficult  for  us  to  conceive  of  such  a 
realm  of  the  mind  as  being  wholly  capable  of  the  crea¬ 
tion  and  perpetration  of  the  psychic  frauds  which  char¬ 
acterize  modern  spiritualism.  We  must  accept  it  as 
true  —  an  established  fact  —  that  the  subconscious 
mind  of  man  constitutes  a  practical,  functioning 
system,  which  embraces  a  creative  imagination,  associa¬ 
tion  of  ideas,  employing  a  high  degree  of  subtle  reason¬ 
ing  and  keen  judgment,  together  with  an  ability  of 
discreet  deception,  that  is  positively  uncanny. 

The  subconscious  may  become  responsible  for  our 
spells  of  periodic  depression,  our  temperamental  moods, 
hysterical  catalepsy,  trance  states,  somnambulistic 
wanderings,  as  well  as  the  unique  phenomena  of  sec¬ 
ondary  personality.  And  to  any  power  of  mind  so  ver¬ 
satile  as  this,  it  requires  not  a  great  stretch  of  the 
imagination  to  understand  how  the  subconscious  may 
be  the  birthplace  of  the  deceptive  vagaries  and  the 
unique  hallucinations  of  spirit  mediumship,  for  this 
unconscious  realm  is  richly  endowed  with  all  the  mem¬ 
ory  and  experience  material  of  one’s  past  life. 

The  Unconscious  Wish .  If  dreams  represent  an 
effort  on  the  part  of  the  subconscious  during  sleep  to 
experience  wish-fulfillment,  to  project  its  wishes  out 
into  the  conscious  mind  by  means  of  the  symbolisms  of 


Psychic  Phenomena 


161 


the  dream  world,  it  may  also  be  true  that  the  medium- 
istic  phenomena,  in  the  form  of  visual  and  auditory 
hallucinations,  spirit  messages  and  spirit  forms,  may 
be  but  a  representation  of  the  same  effort  of  the  un¬ 
conscious  to  gain  expression  —  to  eliminate  its  com¬ 
plexes  —  to  experience  wish-fulfillment. 

When  certain  unstable  types  of  human  beings  have 
long  desired  and  intensely  wished,  in  their  minds,  to 
communicate  with  the  dead,  when  they  have  studied, 
thought  and  prayed  over  this  problem;  when  they  have 
faithfully  attended  seances  and  have  allowed  the  long¬ 
ings  of  their  souls  to  be  focused  and  concentrated  on 
the  thought,  the  desire  to  draw  the  veil  aside  and  com¬ 
municate  with  the  spirits  beyond  —  I  say,  after  all  this 
preliminary  psychic  preparation,  it  is  little  wonder, 
then,  that  ultimately  their  day  dreams  and  reveries 
should  begin  to  flow  in  the  channel  of  wish-fulfillment, 
and  that  the  overflowing  content  of  the  subconscious 
should  push  itself  up  and  out  toward  the  attainment 
and  realization  of  those  visions  and  experiences  which 
would  in  some  measure  gratify  this  intense  longing  of 
the  soul. 

Owing  to  the  widespread  prevalence  of  spiritistic 
teachings,  there  is  a  great  tendency  on  the  part  of  many 
people  to  confuse  their  inner  experiences  or  “inner 
voice”  with  their  beliefs  about  ghosts  and  apparitions, 
all  the  while  forgetting  how  tricky  the  subconscious 
mind  is  in  palming  off  on  its  owner  the  creatures  of  its 


162 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


own  creation.  It  is  failure  to  recognize  this  fact  that 
leads  the  insane  and  the  near-insane  to  become  victims 
of  both  hallucinations  and  delusions.  It  must  be  re¬ 
membered  that  the  average  human  mind  cannot  be 
trusted  to  tell  exactly,  precisely,  and  truthfully  what  is 
going  on  in  its  own  depths. 

Belief  and  Will .  In  general,  belief  is  but  the  con¬ 
scious  recognition  or  expression  of  an  unconscious 
desire  or  wish.  The  dominant  human  wish  is  for  self¬ 
glory,  power  and  self-aggrandizement.  All  down 
through  the  ages,  outside  of  the  military  hero  and  the 
sovereign  of  the  realm,  a  “seer”  was  the  most  honored 
of  all  men.  We  look  with  reverence  and  awe  upon  the 
men  and  women  who  are  supposed  to  be  in  touch  with 
unseen  power.  We  are  inclined  to  worship  those  of  our 
fellows  who  have  been  able  to  push  aside  the  veil  and 
peer  into  the  realms  of  another  world.  In  modern 
times  the  “medium”  has  become  the  successor  of  the 
ancient  “seer.” 

The  ordinary  clergyman,  it  is  true,  reads  his  Bible 
and  prays,  and  then  orates  his  message  from  the  pulpit; 
but  the  medium  leans  over  the  threshold  of  another 
world,  and  there  —  so  he  claims  —  actually  hears  the 
voices  and  sees  the  forms  of  spirit  beings,  angelic  hosts 
and  departed  humans.  The  medium  today  is  worshiped 
as  a  hero,  adored  as  a  “seer”  by  the  faithful  believers 
in  spiritualism  —  until  of  course  such  time  as  the  grand 
exposure  results,  the  fraud  is  made  manifest,  the  de- 


Psychic  Phenomena 


163 


ception  is  disclosed,  and  even  then  many  of  the  faithful 
are  slow  to  abandon  their  belief  in  the  spiritual  powers 
of  their  chosen  medium. 

18.  TAPPING  THE  SUBCONSCIOUS 

It  has  been  scientifically  demonstrated  that  the  sub¬ 
conscious  mind  can  hold,  formulate,  and  subsequently 
give  forth  for  expression,  ideas,  images,  emotions,  and 
associations  of  ideas,  which  have  never  been  con¬ 
sciously  recognized  or  entertained  for  one  instant  — 
even  in  the  fringe  of  the  personal  consciousness.  Never 
have  these  things  been  brought  to  the  attention  of  the 
individual,  so  that  in  their  subsequent  upbringing  from 
the  subconscious  depths  they  are  recognized  as  things 
wholly  foreign  to  that  very  mind  which  has  just  given 
them  birth.  That  this  is  true  is  conclusively  shown  in 
the  case  of  the  study  of  Mrs.  Holland  who,  by  auto¬ 
matic  writing  and  in  hypnosis,  described  things  trans¬ 
piring  in  her  environment  of  which  she  was  wholly 
unaware  at  the  time. 

In  experiments  of  this  sort  I  have  been  able  to  have 
subjects  recall  things  which  had  been  read  in  news¬ 
papers,  but  without  sufficient  attention  being  paid  to 
them  to  enable  the  consciousness  to  be  aware  of  the 
fact,  and  to  trace  out  in  the  very  depths  of  the  sub¬ 
conscious  mind  experiences  long  since  forgotten  and 
which  were  produced  as  new  creations  in  automatic 
writing,  trance  speaking,  etc. 


I 


164  The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 

And  so  we  come  to  see  that  the  subconscious  mind  is 
a  dangerous  thing  to  tamper  with.  It  is  a  risky  thing 
to  dip  into  too  much.  If  you  dip  in  repeatedly  you 
are  likely  to  become  “dippy.” 

Exploring  the  Subconscious  by  Hypnotism.  Experi¬ 
mentally,  by  means  of  hypnosis  and  by  the  procedure 
of  psychoanalysis,  we  are  able  as  will  be  seen,  to  take 
these  mystics,  psychics,  clairvoyants,  and  mediums, 
and  after  they  have  given  us  a  beautiful  spirit  seance 
and  have  transmitted  to  us  messages  from  their  spirit 
guides  and  controls  —  after  we  have  had  most  won¬ 
derful  and  touching  converse  with  our  dear  and  de¬ 
parted  dead  —  then  we  are  able  to  take  these  unstable, 
hysteric,  and  unique  individuals  in  hand,  and  by  scien¬ 
tific  processes  and  psychologic  procedure  show,  first  to 
ourselves  and  subsequently  to  those  mediums  them¬ 
selves  —  if  they  are  sincere  —  that  all  this  stuff,  the 
whole  sordid  mess,  had  a  purely  human  and  wholly 
natural  origin  in  the  depths  of  their  own  subconscious 
minds. 

Psychoanalysis.  Many  years  ago  I  became  greatly 
interested  in  psychoanalysis  and  its  possibilities  in  the 
study  and  treatment  of  nervous  disorders,  but  I  had 
not  gone  far  in  the  employment  of  this  method  when, 
as  the  result  of  an  experience  that  came  to  me  through 
the  study  of  a  spirit  medium,  I  saw  I  had  accidentally 
stumbled  upon  what  to  me  seemed  the  most  valuable 
tool  I  had  as  yet  discovered  for  scientifically  investi- 


Psychic  Phenomena 


165 


gating  and  intelligently  explaining  the  more  subtle 
phases  and  phenomena  of  spiritualism. 

Suffice  it  to  say,  in  this  connection,  that  psychoanal¬ 
ysis  enables  us,  without  putting  the  patient  into 
hypnotic  sleep,  systematically  to  explore  the  superficial 
strata  of  the  subconscious  mind.  In  this  way  we  have 
been  able  to  show,  again  and  again,  that  practically  all 
of  these  things  which  mediums  bring  forth  as  commu¬ 
nications  from  departed  spirits  have  been  palmed  off 
on  their  conscious  consciousness  by  their  own  uncon¬ 
scious,  or  subconscious  selves. 

In  the  case  of  the  sincere  spiritualist  today,  I  am 
able  to  sit  down  and  look  him  straight  in  the  eye  as  I 
listen  to  his  enthusiastic  recital  of  the  marvelous  phe¬ 
nomena  associated  with  his  favorite  medium,  while  I 
say:  “It  is  all  very  interesting,  but  has  it  ever  occurred 
to  you  that  I  have  in  my  own  mind  another,  and  what 
seems  to  me  to  be  a  much  more  reasonable  explanation 
for  what  you  are  telling  me?  And  furthermore,  if  your 
medium  is  sincere  and  you  will  bring  him  to  me,  and 
he  will  honestly  and  fairly  submit  to  the  tests  that  we 
can  put  him  through,  wre  will  first  prove  to  you  that 
his  physical  manifestations  and  phenomena  are  ma¬ 
terialistic  and  fraudulent;  and,  second,  that  his  psychic 
phenomena  —  his  messages  from  the  dead  —  take 
origin  in  the  subconscious  depths  of  his  own  uncon¬ 
scious  mind.”  By  means  of  either  or  both  hypnotism 
and  psychoanalysis,  and  perhaps  in  certain  cases  by 


166 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


means  of  automatic  writing,  if  these  mediums  are  sin¬ 
cere,  this  can  usually  be  demonstrated. 

Mediums  should  be  warned  against  submitting  to 
psychoanalysis  of  a  thorough-going  sort,  if  they  want 
still  to  persist  in  the  practice  of  their  profession  as  a 
means  of  gaining  a  livelihood,  for  all  those  of  any  honor 
will  be  forced  to  abandon  their  career  and  seek  new 
economic  paths  as  a  means  of  making  a  living,  because 
any  experienced  psychoanalyst  will  shortly  convince 
them  of  the  autopsychic  origin  of  their  so-called  spirit 
communications. 

Within  the  past  year  I  have  had  not  less  than  five 
cases  of  clairvoyants  and  mediums  who  have,  after  they 
had  been  but  superficially  studied  and  analyzed,  aban¬ 
doned  belief  in  the  supernatural  origin  of  their  voices 
and  visions,  and  who  are  rapidly  getting  themselves 
under  control  and  bringing  their  minds  into  safe  and 
normal  channels. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  MORAL  AND  ETHICAL  ASPECTS  OF 

SPIRITUALISM 

SPIRITUALISM  has  made  great  claims,  but  it  has 
failed  to  make  good.  It  has  contributed  mighty 
little  to  the  advancement  of  education,  morals,  ethics, 
invention,  religion,  or  any  other  of  the  arts  or  sciences 
of  modern  civilization. 

If  the  spirits  are  so  wise,  why  have  they  never  whis¬ 
pered  the  principles  of  some  new  and  great  invention 
to  the  mediums?  Why  is  it  that  our  mechanical  in¬ 
ventions  all  originate  in  the  brains  of  our  natural-born 
geniuses,  or  are  worked  out  in  the  persistent  sweat  of 
such  men  as  Thomas  A.  Edison?  What  a  time  and 
labor  saving  it  would  be  if  the  secrets  of  the  wireless- 
telegraph,  or  the  principles  of  an  internal  combustion 
gas  engine,  could  be  secured  at  a  spiritualistic  seance. 
Why  is  it  that  these  discarnate  spirits  and  spirit  beings 
of  invisible  space,  if  they  are  so  interested  in  human 
kind,  do  not  whisper  to  the  mediums  the  cure  for  can¬ 
cer,  the  remedy  for  infantile  paralysis,  or  the  most  suc¬ 
cessful  method  of  treating  pneumonia?  Why  do  not 
these  all-wise,  omnipresent  spirits  that  hover  about 
our  earthly  forms,  take  a  greater  interest  in  things  that 


167 


168 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


are  worth  while?  Why  do  they  spend  so  much  time 
telling  us  where  to  find  lost  jack-knives,  and  other  use¬ 
less  trinkets?  Why  do  they  waste  so  much  energy  in 
telling  us  the  date  on  an  ancient  coin,  or  the  foolish 
thoughts  that  went  through  our  heads  at  some  given 
moment,  when  there  is  so  much  that  is  worth  while 
that  needs  to  be  done  on  this  planet  and  for  its  inhab¬ 
itants?  An  intelligent  visitor  cannot  go  to  an  average 
spiritualistic  seance,  without  leaving  with  the  impres¬ 
sion  that  the  entities  of  the  spirit  land  are  either  infan¬ 
tile,  or  pure  and  simple  “boobs,”  when,  after  all  their 
laborious  effort  to  contact  with  the  living,  they  indulge 
in  such  puerile  and  juvenile  communications. 

1.  HUMBUGGERY  ILLUSTRATED 

In  my  pilgrimages  out  on  the  frontiers  of  science  and 
spiritism,  I  have  had  many  amusing  experiences;  ex¬ 
periences  which  illustrate  the  fact  that  neither  the 
mediums  nor  their  alleged  spirit  controls  know  the 
real  facts  concerning  the  topic  of  their  discussion.  One 
of  the  best  illustrations  I  have  had  of  this,  and  one 
that  has  been  repeated  many  times  in  my  experience, 
is  one  that  occurred  some  years  ago  in  London.  I  had 
been  taken,  by  medical  friends,  to  consult  with  the 
then-reigning  medium,  the  one  who  at  that  time  was 
in  vogue.  She  started  the  seance,  in  my  case,  with  the 
statement  that  she  observed  that  I  was  more  or  less  of 
a  skeptic  regarding  spiritualism  and  the  ability  of 


Moral  and  Ethical  Aspects 


169 


mediums  to  converse  with  spirits  beyond  the  vale. 
This  skepticism  I  of  course  acknowledged,  and  she 
proceeded  immediately  to  get  down  to  business  and 
pass  under  the  influence  of  her  controls,  her  spirit 
guides,  etc.  She  soon  said  that  there  were  a  number 
of  my  acquaintances  and  departed  relatives  who  were 
present  and  would  like  to  communicate  with  me.  I  in¬ 
quired  as  to  their  identity,  and  she  seemed  a  little  hes¬ 
itant  at  first,  but  proceeded  in  a  rather  indefinite 
manner  to  say  that  she  thought  grandfather  was  pres¬ 
ent,  a  cousin,  and  then  after  a  moment  of  hesitation,  a 
departed  brother.  “You  have  a  dead  brother,  have 
you  not?”  she  asked  me,  and  while  I  did  not  reply 
“Yes,”  I  said  to  her:  “Well,  of  those  you  have  named, 
I  should  be  most  interested  in  holding  converse  with 
the  dead  brother  you  have  mentioned.”  There  then 
ensued  a  half  hour’s  communication  with  my  alleged 
departed  brother.  It  was  very  interesting,  and  I  am 
free  to  confess  that  it  would  be  very  difficult  to  explain 
fully  and  completely  on  purely  psychological  grounds 
and  the  subconscious  hypothesis.  I  have  no  reason  to 
believe  that  this  medium  had  any  knowledge  of  my 
identity,  or  knew  anything  of  my  past  history,  but  this 
dead  brother  of  mine  certainly  did  hold  a  very  inter¬ 
esting  conversation  with  me,  and  while  there  was  more 
or  less  of  that  vagueness  and  ambiguity  that  charac¬ 
terizes  mediums,  especially  when  they  undertake  to 
prognosticate  the  future,  nevertheless  this  departed 


170 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


brother  did  show  some  familiarity  with  my  past  his¬ 
tory  —  not  very  definite,  it  is  true  —  but  still  he  made 
a  brave  stagger  at  trying  to  convince  me  that  he  knew 
me  as  I  had  been,  and  that  therefore  I  should  recog¬ 
nize  him  as  he  was. 

Finally,  the  seance  was  concluded,  and  the  spirit  de¬ 
parted  from  our  presence,  and  then  this  medium 
asked  me  what  I  thought  of  the  performance.  I  told 
her  I  thought  it  was  very  interesting.  She  said,  “Now 
you  are  convinced  of  the  reality  of  spirit  manifesta¬ 
tions  ?”  I  told  her  no,  I  was  not,  and  she  said, “How 
can  you  go  through  such  an  experience  as  you  have  just 
had  without  admitting  the  reality  of  spiritual  manifes¬ 
tations  ?”  And  then  she  was  greatly  perturbed  and 
considerably  angered  when  I  confessed  to  her  that  I 
had  never  had  a  brother,  living  or  dead,  and  that  how¬ 
ever  unique  or  entertaining  the  visitation  might  have 
been,  she  had  been  imposed  upon  by  the  spirits,  and 
deceived,  and  that  the  spirit  who  was  conversing  with 
me,  no  matter  what  his  source  and  origin,  was  an  un¬ 
doubted  prevaricator,  as  he  had  endeavored  to  palm 
himself  off  on  both  of  us  as  the  spirit  of  my  departed 
brother  —  that  I  was  the  oldest  member  of  the  family, 
and  that  there  were  no  other  children  except  twin  sis¬ 
ters,  one  living  and  one  dead.  This  technical  point  I 
had  taken  pains  to  make  clear  by  directly  asking  him, 
early  in  the  interview,  if  he  was  the  spirit  of  my  brother 
and  not  the  spirit  of  my  sister,  and  he  explained  that 


Moral  and  Ethical  Aspects  171 

he  was  the  discarnate  spirit  of  a  brother,  not  the  sister. 

2.  DEGREES  OF  FRAUD  AND  DECEPTION 

The  successive  exposure  of  fraud  after  fraud  on  the 
part  of  mediums  seems  only  to  develop  their  sagacity 
and  sharpen  their  wits.  One  medium  tells  us  how 
another  who  is  so  fortunate  as  to  have  a  chemist  for  a 
husband  has,  by  his  help,  developed  some  sort  of  a 
capsule  which  can  be  moistened  in  her  mouth  and 
thrown  up  into  the  air  in  the  seance  room  where,  in  the 
midst  of  total  darkness,  it  will  evolve  into  a  luminous 
vapor  about  the  size  of  the  human  form  and  can  be 
wafted  about  the  room  by  initiating  a  gentle  breeze  by 
means  of  a  fan  or  otherwise.  It  is  said  that  there  is  no 
odor  connected  with  this  phenomenon,  that  if  the 
lighcs  are  turned  on  nothing  will  be  seen,  but  that  on 
turning  out  the  lights  the  mystic  form  will  again 
appear. 

It  should  be  noted  in  this  connection  that  fashion 
—  the  vogue  —  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with  spiritual¬ 
istic  performances.  In  one  period  we  had  rapping  on 
tables,  in  another  slate  writing,  in  another  materiali¬ 
zations,  to  be  followed  by  magnetic  powers,  spirit 
photography,  Indian  guides,  and  so  on.  Particularly, 
it  has  been  found  that  fashions  come  and  go  in  regard 
to  controls  and  guides.  How  much  has  been  done  in 
the  name  of  Katie  King,  John  King,  Red  Jacket,  and 
so  on.  We  have  the  record  of  serious  quarrels  and  vio- 


172 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


lent  disputes  between  mediums  over  the  right  to  have 
certain  individuals  for  their  alleged  controls,  one  me¬ 
dium  contending  that  another  has  no  right  to  such  a 
control,  etc.  These  things  have  gotten  into  the  news¬ 
papers,  and  have  even  resulted  in  personal  violence. 

After  all,  the  quality  of  the  communications  from 
alleged  spirits  is  enough  to  betray  the  whole  move¬ 
ment.  When  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  gets  Sir  Isaac  Newton 
on  the  wireless  telephone  it  is  interesting  to  note  that 
we  do  not  get  any  advanced  information  on  gravitation 
or  the  latest  developments  of  the  Einstein  theory.  Sir 
Oliver  is  not  able  to  get  any  help  as  a  result  of  the 
progress  which  Sir  Isaac  has  been  able  to  make  on  the 
other  side.  Sir  Isaac  merely  tells  Sir  Oliver  that  he  is 
glad  he  is  studying  spiritualism,  that  he  is  very  happy 
on  the  other  side,  and  bids  him  farewell. 

When  Hodgson  communicates  with  Sir  Oliver, 
through  Mrs.  Piper,  he  is  not  able  to  give  any  informa¬ 
tion  on  the  cipher  code  which  he  left  behind  —  he  is 
not  able  to  give  any  information  regarding  psychic  re¬ 
search  which  will  help  Sir  Oliver  —  he  merely  says: 
“Hello!  I  am  so  happy;  all’s  well,  good-bye.” 

I  have  never  known  a  future  event  to  be  unequiv¬ 
ocally  predicted,  and  then  seen  it  happen  as  stated. 
I  have  known  of  many  haphazard,  ambiguous  predic¬ 
tions,  that  could  be  twisted  around  so  that  they  could 
be  said  to  have  come  to  pass,  and  this  seems  to  be  the 
habit  of  mediums.  I  remember  the  case  of  a  patient  on 


Moral  and  Ethical  Aspects 


173 


whom  I  was  to  operate.  His  wife  went  to  a  medium  and 
asked  if  her  husband  would  survive  the  operation,  and 
the  medium  replied,  “Yes,  if  the  right  surgeon  does  it.  ” 
This  set  the  wife  nearly  wild,  and  she  resorted  to  the 
ouija  board  to  ascertain  if  I  would  be  the  right  sur¬ 
geon.  But  a  thunder  storm  came  up  and  so  frightened 
this  highly  nervous  woman  that  she  gave  up  the  ouija 
board,  became  hysterical,  and  had  to  go  to  the  hospital 
herself.  I  am  glad  to  record  that  the  patient  lived,  but 
had  he  died,  the  medium  would  only  have  called  atten¬ 
tion  to  the  nature  of  her  advice  and  the  responsibility 
would  have  rested  upon  the  person  who  selected  the 
wrong  surgeon. 

3.  MORALITY  AND  HONESTY 

A  few  years  back  there  was  published  in  German,  a 
work  on  spiritualism  by  Baron  von  Schrenck-Notzing. 
This  same  book  was  published  in  French  by  Madame 
Bisson.  This  is  a  work  containing  about  one  hundred 
fifty  photographs  of  materializations  of  their  pet  me¬ 
dium,  Eva  C.,  and  regarding  this  lady’s  character  and 
morals  the  baron  admits  that  she  has  “moral  senti¬ 
ment  only  in  the  ego-centric  sense,”  and  if  I  understand 
that  definition  properly  it  is  equivalent  to  saying  that 
she  has  no  moral  sentiments  at  all.  The  baron  further 
says  that  she  “behaves  improperly  to  herself,”  that  she 
“lost  her  virtue  before  she  was  twenty,”  and  further 
that  she  has  a  “lively  erotic  imagination,”  and  “an 


174 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


exaggerated  idea  of  her  own  charms  and  her  influence 
upon  the  male  sex.”  Yet  Sir  Arthur  and  Sir  Oliver 
hold  up  this  medium  and  her  performances  as  the  latest 
manifestations  of  the  spirits  of  another  world  in  their 
efforts  to  communicate  with  this  world. 

Now  this  supposedly  immaculate  vestal  virgin  —  this 
high  priestess  of  the  inner  spiritualism  - —  as  we  have 
previously  shown,  is  none  other  than  the  notorious 
Marthe  Braud,  she  of  the  Algiers  frauds  and  numerous 
other  unsavory  experiences. 

W  e  must  not  forget  that  one  of  the  Fox  sisters,  Mar¬ 
garet,  who  later  married  Captain  Kane,  the  Arctic  ex¬ 
plorer  - —  and  who,  as  the  result  of  his  urging,  made  a 
clean  breast  of  the  whole  spiritualistic  movement  in 
America  —  branded  it  as  a  gross  fraud  engineered  for 
profit  by  her  older  sister,  and  declared  further  that  the 
whole  movement  was  “steeped  in  fraud  and  immor¬ 
ality.” 

Perhaps  Sir  A.  C.  Doyle  would  plead  that  this  appal¬ 
ling  outburst  of  fraud,  which  poured  over  America 
from  1848  to  1888,  was  only  the  occasion  for  the  appear¬ 
ance  of  genuine  mediums.  Well,  who  are  they?  Take 
the  mediums  who  founded  Spiritualism  in  England 
from  1852  onward.  Was  Foster  white?  As  early  as 
1863  the  Spiritualistic  Judge  Edmonds,  learned  “sick¬ 
ening  details  of  his  criminality.”  Was  Colchester,  who 
was  detected  and  exposed,  white?  What  was  the  color 
of  the  Etolmes  family,  whose  darling  spirit  control. 


Moral  and  Ethical  Aspects 


175 


“Katie  King/’  got  so  much  jewelry  from  the  poor  old 
R.  D.  Owen  before  she  was  found  out?  Are  we  to  see 
no  spots  on  the  egregious  “  Dr.”  Monck,  who  pretended 
that  he  was  taken  from  his  bed  in  Bristol  and  put  to 
bed  in  Swindon  by  spirit  hands?  Or  in  corpulent  Mrs. 
Cuppy  (an  amateur  who  duped  A.  Russell  Wallace  for 
years),  who  swore  that  she  had  been  snatched  from  her 
table  in  her  home  at  Ball’s  Pond,  taken  across  London 
(and  through  several  solid  walls)  for  three  miles  at 
sixty  miles  an  hour,  and  deposited  on  the  table  in  a 
locked  room?  Was  Charles  Williams  white?  He  was, 
with  Rita,  detected  by  Spiritualists  at  Amsterdam  with 
a  whole  ghost-making  apparatus  in  his  possession. 
Were  Bastian  and  Taylor  white?  They  were  similarly 
exposed  at  Arnheim.  Was  Florence  Cook,  the  pupil  of 
Herne  (the  transporter  of  Mrs.  Cuppy  at  sixty  miles 
an  hour),  and  bewitcher  of  Sir  W.  Crookes,  white? 
We  shall  soon  see.  Was  her  friend  and  contemporary 
ghost-producer,  Miss  Showers,  never  exposed?  Or  does 
Sir  A.  C.  Doyle  want  us  to  believe  in  Morse,  or  Eg- 
linton,  or  Slade,  or  the  Davenport  brothers,  or  Mrs. 
Fay,  or  Miss  Davenport,  or  Duguid,  or  Fowler,  or 
Hudson,  or  Miss  Wood,  or  Mme.  Blavatsky? 

And  so  the  dismal  story  goes  on:  Munsterberg  shows 
up  Eusapia  Palladino;  they  catch  Craddock  in  London 
and  he  is  fined  in  the  police  court;  Frau  Aband,  the 
mediumistic  marvel  of  Berlin  and  the  idol  of  the  Teu¬ 
tonic  Spiritualists  is  exposed  and  arrested;  Bailey,  the 


176 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


pride  of  the  Australian  Spiritualists  —  he  of  marvelous 
rapport  fame  —  is  unmasked  and  exposed;  in  France, 
Corrales,  a  short-lived  mediumistic  marvel  is  soon  cast 
down  in  disgrace;  Sardi,  the  chief  of  the  Italian  me¬ 
diums  comes  to  a  sad  end,  and  the  following  year  Linda 
Gazerra,  that  refined  Italian  lady  medium  who  held 
high  carnival  and  duped  the  scientists  for  three  years, 
comes  to  the  same  inglorious  end;  Mrs.  Wreidt,  the 
famous  direct- voice  medium,  met  her  Waterloo  in  Nor¬ 
way.  And  so  the  list  goes;  mediums  are  short-lived; 
three  to  five  years  is  about  all  that  can  be  expected  of 
them  before  they  are  detected  in  fraud  and  publicly 
exposed.  Some  clever  ones  have  been  able  to  operate  a 
bit  longer. 

How  long  would  the  priesthood  of  any  cult  last  — 
how  long  would  the  ministry  of  any  denomination 
stand  —  if  in  three-quarters  of  a  century  it  had  been 
convicted  of  the  fraud,  immorality,  and  other  unethical 
behavior  that  stigmatizes  the  priesthood  of  modern 
spiritualism?  As  one  writer  said,  calling  attention  to 
Podmore’s  history  of  the  spiritualistic  movement: 
“There  is  hardly  a  medium  named  in  the  nineteenth 
century  who  does  not  eventually  disappear  in  an  odor 
of  sulphur.” 

Carrington,  who  has  been  a  great  student  of  me¬ 
diums,  and  who  may  be  said  to  be  a  believer  in  spirit¬ 
ualism,  was  forced  to  admit  that  ninety-eight  per  cent  of 
the  physical  phenomena  of  spiritualism  was  fraudulent. 


Moral  and  Ethical  Aspects 


177 


4.  THE  TEST  THAT  ALWAYS  FAILS 

Again  and  again  have  I  tried,  through  mediums,  when 
supposedly  in  communication  with  some  deceased 
scholar,  to  get  the  spirit  to  dictate  to  the  medium  some¬ 
thing  pertaining  to  the  spirit’s  professional  specialties 
when  here  on  earth.  For  instance,  I  have  a  deceased 
friend,  a  physician  and  a  very  dear  friend,  and  in  my 
investigation  of  spiritism  I  have  supposedly  been  many 
times  in  communication  with  this  physician  —  but 
never  have  I  been  able  to  get  the  spirit  to  dictate  some 
passage  from  some  medical  authority  that  I  might  sug¬ 
gest.  Never  could  I  get  the  medium  to  spell  out  medical 
terms  properly,  never  could  I  get  the  medium  to  name 
the  diagnosis  we  made  of  a  certain  case  which  we  had 
in  consultation  or  to  cite  the  authorities  investigated 
at  that  conference  which  led  to  the  making  of  the  diag¬ 
nosis.  In  a  score  of  ways  I  have  given  these  mediums 
an  opportunity  to  prove  that  they  were  in  communica¬ 
tion  with  bona  fide  discarnate  spirits,  but  in  every 
instance  they  have  wholly  and  completely  —  yes  dis¬ 
mally  —  failed. 

I  have  talked  with  George  Washington,  Abraham 
Lincoln,  Thomas  Paine,  Socrates,  Plato,  Milton,  and 
other  of  the  great  minds  of  past  ages,  but  in  no  case  have 
I  ever  secured  from  mediums  anything  from  these  old 
masters  that  would  bear  the  least  semblance  to  the 
product  of  their  minds  when  living  on  earth  —  and 
mind  you,  I  communicated  with  them  with  reference 


178 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


to  the  very  things  they  thought  about  and  discussed 
when  living.  I  did  not  ask  questions  pertaining  to 
their  present  state  in  the  spirit  world.  I  did  not  ask  for 
a  description  of  the  landscape  and  geography  of  spirit- 
land.  I  asked  them  about  the  very  things  they  author¬ 
itatively  discussed  when  living,  and  they  unfailingly 
defaulted  in  their  efforts  to  show  any  degree  of  famil¬ 
iarity  with  those  subjects  in  which  they  were  special¬ 
ists  in  life. 

In  this  connection  I  should  say  that  I  have  tested 
out  mediums  by  going  repeatedly  to  the  same  seance 
and  asking  to  communicate  with  the  same  spirit,  and 
thus  I  have  observed  a  growth  or  development  in  the 
quality  of  the  information  imparted  to  me  through  the 
alleged  spirit.  For  instance,  in  my  first  talk  with  the 
poet  Milton,  along  theological  lines,  I  got  little  or  no 
satisfaction,  but  on  going  several  times  to  the  same  me¬ 
dium  I  discovered  that  she  had  been  reading  Paradise 
Lost ,  so  I  began  having  lengthy  conferences  with  the 
alleged  spirit  of  the  poet.  But  it  was  all  too  transparent 
—  the  medium  had  been  posting  up  and  the  quantity 
and  quality  of  my  information  was  quite  largely  and 
evidently  determined  by  the  medium’s  progress  in  the 
study  of  the  poet’s  writings. 

Hodgson,  Myers,  and  others  have  left  sealed  mes¬ 
sages,  written  in  cipher,  and  so  far  no  medium  has  ever 
been  able  to  interpret  them,  no  one  has  ever  approached 
an  interpretation  of  these  code  messages.  But  some 


Mora]  and  Ethical  Aspects 


179 


fellow  will  be  enthusiastic  for  the  cause  one  of  these 
days  and  will  leave  a  message  which  has  previously 
been  given  to  some  medium,  in  a  spirit  of  enthusiasm, 
feeling  that  the  end  justifies  the  means,  and  they  will 
score  a  big  point  for  spiritualism.  But  so  far  that  test 
has  failed  every  time.  But  mark  my  words  the  time  is 
coming  when  it  will  (apparently)  succeed. 

If  we  could  call  up  the  spirits  of  the  departed,  and 
they  were  really  true  to  their  professed  identity,  we 
might  hear  something  worth  while.  As  some  one  sug¬ 
gested  not  long  since,  it  would  be  interesting  to  get 
Isaac  Newton  on  the  wire  and  hear  what  he  thought  of 
the  Einstein  theory  of  relativity.  We  would  likewise 
be  glad  to  hear  from  George  Washington  on  the  League 
of  Nations;  what  Gladstone  thought  about  the  Irish 
Treaty;  or  from  Abraham  Lincoln  on  the  Four-Power 
Naval  Pact.  It  would  be  interesting  to  hear  what 
Alexander  the  Great  might  have  thought  of  the  mili¬ 
tary  strategy  at  Verdun.  But,  strange  to  say  when  the 
mediums  do  bring  out  these  dignitaries  and  sages  of  a 
past  age,  they  are  much  more  likely  to  talk  about  sub¬ 
stitutes  for  coffee,  removable  dental  bridges,  or  to  dis¬ 
cuss  some  other  trifle,  the  purport  of  which  is  to  try 
and  convince  those  present  that  spirits  are  real  be¬ 
cause  they  can  tell  you  about  something  you  have  lost 
or  which  has  been  stolen,  etc.  The  whole  business  is 
too  trivial  and  juvenile  to  be  worthy  of  the  serious  at¬ 
tention  of  sober-minded,  thinking  men  and  women. 


180 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


There  was  a  Jewish  fellow  who  went  to  consult  a 
medium,  and  she  told  him  his  mother  was  present.  He 
talked  with  his  mother’s  spirit,  and  she  gave  him  mes¬ 
sages  from  other  relatives  who  had  passed  over,  and  at 
the  end  the  medium  asked  if  there  were  any  other  ques¬ 
tions  he  would  like  to  ask  his  mother,  and  he  said: 
“You  know, Mother,  we  used  to  have  such  nice  visits 
in  Hebrew,  and  now  if  I  could  just  have  a  little  talk 
with  you  in  Yiddish,  then  I’d  know  it  was  you.”  But 
the  ghost  could  not  talk  Yiddish. 

5.  MEDIUMISTIC  SPIRITUALITY 

It  does  not  appear  that  the  mediums  are  the  sources 
and  centers  of  the  highest  spiritual  thought  of  the 
realm.  Ethical  advancement  and  spiritual  improve¬ 
ment  do  not  seem  to  take  their  origin  or  have  their 
root  in  spiritualism.  The  men  and  women  who  have 
contributed  to  the  social  improvement  and  moral  ad¬ 
vancement  have  not  been  avowed  spiritualists.  They 
have  not  secured  their  information  from  the  discarnate 
spirits  who  inhabit  the  ether  surrounding  our  planet,  or 
who  infest  the  atmosphere  which  we  breathe  and  re¬ 
breathe. 

The  theological  advancement  of  age  after  age  has  not 
been  the  result  of  spiritualistic  influences.  The  ethical 
and  social  improvement  of  human  society  has  come 
from  those  daring  reformers  and  intrepid  human  minds 
who  have  essayed  to  go  forth  in  times  of  darkness  and 


Moral  and  Ethical  Aspects 


181 


point  out  higher  and  better  ways,  by  means  of  the 
light  which  shone  forth  from  the  truth  which  they  pro¬ 
claimed.  The  world  has  been  advanced  by  men  and 
women  who  loved  light  and  worshipped  truth,  whose 
doings  were  open,  and  whose  beliefs  would  stand  the 
clear  light  and  illumination  of  the  severest  tests  which 
their  fellow  men  might  apply;  whereas  the  mediums,  at 
least  in  a  material  way,  seem  to  love  darkness  more 
than  light,  and  to  keep  their  cause  enshrouded  in  mys¬ 
ticism,  while  their  comings  in  and  goings  out  are 
steeped  in  secrecy  and  permeated  with  mystery. 

6.  NATIONAL  TENDENCIES 

In  our  study  of  mediums  and  spiritualistic  phenom¬ 
ena,  it  is  very  interesting  to  note  that  not  only  waves 
of  fashion  —  epochs  of  characteristic  behavior  —  have 
dominated  spiritualism  from  decade  to  decade,  but  the 
further  fact  is  observed  that  spiritualism  is  directed  in 
its  performance,  and  tends  to  crystallize  its  dogmas, 
differently  among  different  peoples.  There  is  a  nation¬ 
alistic  tendency  to  spirit  manifestations. 

It  seems  that  spiritualistic  manifestations  are  liable 
to  take  on  the  current  color  of  the  time  and  place  in 
which  they  take  origin.  It  is  easy  to  suppose  that  a 
writer  might  receive  from  his  subconscious  centers 
certain  ideas  which  he  believes  to  be  of  spiritistic  origin, 
and  since  they  would  be  quite  likely  to  harmonize  more 
or  less  with  his  theories  of  life  in  general,  and  his  spir- 


182 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


itualistic  philosophy  in  particular,  it  is  easy  to  imagine 
that  his  mind  —  thus  aroused  by  these  ebullitions  of 
the  subconscious  —  would  continue  to  develop  it. 
Now,  suppose  such  an  author  has  theosophical  lean¬ 
ings.  It  is  quite  likely  that  the  whole  spiritualistic 
message  will  evolve  into  a  theosophical  dissertation. 
Such  a  spirit  communication  would  have  special  in¬ 
fluence  with  the  devotees  of  the  theosophical  cult. 

We  observe  that  spiritualism  in  Germany,  France, 
Great  Britain  and  America,  tends  to  run  in  entirely 
different  channels.  Spirits,  apparently,  are  not  in  pos¬ 
session  of  a  working  program  and  a  universal  propa¬ 
ganda.  Apparently,  they  are  limited  in  communicating 
with  the  living  to  the  beliefs,  tendencies  and  other 
influences  which  are  in  vogue  among  the  different  peo¬ 
ples  and  nations  through  which  they  operate.  All  of 
which  suggests  the  purely  fallible  nature  and  human 
origin  of  the  whole  phenomenon. 

7.  THE  BIBLICAL  ESTIMATE  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

It  is  certain  that  Moses,  who,  we  are  told,  was 
“learned  in  all  the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians,”  was  fa¬ 
miliar  with  these  occult  doctrines,  for  he  left  on  record 
for  the  guidance  of  the  ancient  Israelites,  the  following 
admonition:  “There  shall  not  be  found  among  you  any 
one  that  maketh  his  son  or  his  daughter  to  pass  through 
the  fire,  or  that  useth  divination,  or  an  observer  of 
times,  or  an  enchanter,  or  a  witch,  or  a  necromancer. 


Moral  and  Ethical  Aspects 


183 


For  all  that  do  these  things  are  an  abomination  unto 
the  Lord.”  Deut.  18:10-12.  He  here  catalogues  eight 
different  classes  of  occult  devotees  or  spiritualistic 
mediums. 

It  must  be  evident  from  the  foregoing  biblical  admon¬ 
ition  that  spiritualism,  in  the  time  of  Moses,  was  not 
in  good  ethical  and  theologic  standing.  If  the  religious 
teachers  of  biblical  times  believed  the  mediums  of 
their  day  were  actually  in  communication  with  spirits, 
it  is  evident  that  they  regarded  them  as  highly  dis¬ 
reputable,  and  looked  upon  their  spirit  controls  as  be¬ 
ing  of  an  evil  nature.  Consequently,  we  have,  all 
through  the  scriptures,  the  denunciation  of  the  prac¬ 
tice  of  seeking  information  from  the  dead,  with  the 
constant  exhortation  that  the  appeal  of  mankind 
should  be  made  to  the  living  God. 

The  prophet  Isaiah,  in  discussing  spiritualism,  says: 
“And  when  they  shall  say  unto  you.  Seek  unto  them 
that  have  familiar  spirits,  and  unto  wizards  that  peep 
and  that  mutter;  should  not  a  people  seek  unto  their 
God?  for  the  living  to  the  dead?  To  the  law  and  to  the 
testimony:  if  they  speak  not  according  to  this  word,  it 
is  because  there  is  no  light  in  them.”  Isaiah  8:  19,  20. 
This  then  is  the  test.  Divine  law  and  the  testimony  of 
truth  constitute  the  statutes  whereby  we  should  judge 
the  teachings  and  estimate  the  performances  of  mod¬ 
ern  spiritualism,  but  how  seldom  are  these  spiritistic 
pretenders  of  today  ever  brought  face  to  face  with  such 


184 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


a  tribunal.  How  seldom  are  they  called  upon  to  pass 
such  tests.  All  too  easily,  the  ignorant  and  unin¬ 
structed  public  of  today  are  fascinated  with  their  se¬ 
ances  and  deceived  by  their  performances. 

It  must  be  clear  to  the  reader  that  the  Jews,  as  a 
nation,  were  taught  from  earliest  infancy  to  have  noth¬ 
ing  to  do  with  the  whole  group  of  mystic  soothsayers, 
whether  they  secured  their  information  from  the  stars, 
the  astrologists;  whether  they  got  it  from  evil  spirits, 
the  witches;  or  whether  they  pretended  to  communi¬ 
cate  with  the  dead,  those  having  familiar  spirits.  It  is 
clear  that  Moses  and  his  successors  taught  the  Jews  to 
keep  away  from  the  whole  nefarious  tribe. 

It  is  an  important  part  of  the  history  of  spiritualism 
to  note  how  it  was  so  utterly  condemned  by  Jewish 
philosophy,  and  outlawed  by  Judaistic  theology;  and 
it  is  even  a  commentary  on  the  wisdom  of  Moses  that 
he  should,  three  thousand  years  ago,  and  in  the  absence 
of  all  the  psychologic  and  scientific  aid  which  we  have 
at  our  hand  today,  diagnose  and  seek  to  restrict  the 
occultism  of  his  day  as  shown  by  the  prohibitions  here¬ 
tofore  quoted  —  it  is  also  a  sad  commentary  on  the 
intelligence  and  reasoning  power  of  the  men  and  women 
who  live  in  this  supposedly  intellectual  age,  with  all 
the  means  and  methods  we  have  for  detecting  occult 
fraud  and  exposing  spiritualistic  deceptions,  that  such 
large  numbers  should  look  with  such  a  high  degree  of 
favor  upon  the  spiritualistic  pretenses  of  our  modern 


Moral  and  Ethical  Aspects 


185 


adventurers,  wizards  and  necromancers. 

In  ancient  times  they  also  had  fraudulent  priests. 
In  the  apocryphal  book  Bel  and  the  Dragon ,  we  are 
told  how  Daniel  revealed  to  Cyrus,  the  King  of  Baby¬ 
lon,  a  trick  by  which  the  court  priests  were  fooling 
him,  inducing  him  to  provide  each  evening  a  great 
quantity  of  choicest  provisions  for  the  great  god  Bel  to 
eat,  but  which  they  and  their  families  ate.  By  the 
neat  device  of  a  thin  layer  of  ashes  sprinkled  on  the 
floor  of  the  temple  and  on  the  altar  steps,  Daniel  was 
able  to  reveal  the  footprints  of  the  tricky  priests  and 
the  secret  door  under  the  altar  by  which  they  entered 
the  temple  after  it  “was  shut  and  sealed  with  the 
king’s  signet.”  Daniel  was  a  good  psychic  researcher. 
We  need  more  of  his  sort  today. 

8.  THE  WITCH  OF  ENDOR 

One  of  the  most  significant  passages  in  all  the  sacred 
literature,  with  which  I  am  familiar,  is  that  depicting 
the  experience  of  the  Hebrew  King,  Saul,  with  the 
Witch  of  Endor,  and  found  in  I  Sam.  28:5-16. 

A  perusal  of  this  passage  of  scripture  shows,  very 
clearly,  a  number  of  things: 

1.  That  they  had  professional  mediums  in  Saul’s 
day,  just  as  we  have  them  today  and  that  these  pro¬ 
fessional  mediums  claimed  to  be  able  to  call  up  the 
dead  and  to  put  living  persons  in  communication  with 
discarnate  spirits. 


186 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


2.  That  official  decrees  had  been  issued  against 
these  ancient  mediums,  in  harmony  with  the  Mosaic 
injunction,  much  as  we  are  wont,  every  now  and  then, 
to  issue  police  orders  against  the  operation  of  clairvoy¬ 
ants,  fortune  tellers  and  mediums,  in  our  own  day; 
and  that  at  this  particular  time  when  Saul  felt  lonely 
and  God-forsaken,  there  had  been  recent  police  activ¬ 
ities  of  a  very  vigorous  nature  against  all  this  psychic, 
occult  business,  throughout  the  Hebrew  kingdom. 

3.  That  after  much  persuasion,  and  after  being 
solemnly  promised  that  she  should  not  be  arrested  or 
molested,  this  old  woman  of  Endor  consented  to  call 
the  spirits,  and  at  her  petitioner’s  request  brought  up 
the  alleged  spirit  of  Samuel.  And  as  is  often  the  case, 
enough  of  plausible  or  worthy  advice  is  given  to  serve 
both  to  establish  the  identity  of  the  spirit  and  create 
confidence  on  the  part  of  those  who  seek  information 
from  these  sources.  It  is  further  suggested  that  the  spirit, 
in  this  case  at  least,  operating  through  the  witch 
of  Endor,  knew  and  recognized  Saul  when  the  old 
lady  herself  was  apparently  quite  ignorant  of  his 
identity;  this  fact  tending  of  course  to  give  the  whole 
proceeding  a  tinge  of  the  supernatural  of  some  sort; 
though  of  course  we  have  here  only  a  very  brief  and 
fragmentary  record  of  a  very  important  and  extra¬ 
ordinary  seance. 

4.  The  whole  thing  contained  quite  a  rebuke  for 
Saul,  in  that  even  the  alleged  spirit  of  Samuel  pointed 


Moral  and  Ethical  Aspects 


187 


out  the  folly,  if  he  could  not  get  help  and  succor  from 
the  living,  acting  Spiritual  Forces  of  the  realm  —  if 
his  living  God  could  not  help  him  out  of  the  fix  he  was 
in  —  of  appealing  to  the  dead  for  guidance  and  wisdom. 

The  folly  of  this  transaction  on  the  part  of  King 
Saul  is  further  shown  by  a  terse  statement  found  in 
I  Chronicles  10:13,  14.  “So  Saul  died  for  his  trans¬ 
gression  which  he  committed  against  the  Lord,  even 
against  the  word  of  the  Lord,  wrhich  he  kept  not,  and 
also  for  asking  counsel  of  one  that  had  a  familiar  spirit, 
to  inquire  of  it:  and  inquired  not  of  the  Lord:  there¬ 
fore  he  slew  him  and  turned  the  kingdom  unto  David 
the  son  of  Jesse.” 

According  to  the  sacred  record,  the  Almighty  was 
much  displeased  with  Saul  because  he  sought  counsel 
from  a  spiritualistic  medium.  We  would  infer  that  he 
only  went  to  this  source  of  help  because  he  was  out  of 
touch  and  out  of  tune  with  the  higher  and  Divine 
source  of  help  and  guidance,  and  the  subsequent  sad 
spectacle  of  his  dying  a  suicide  on  the  hills  of  Gilboa 
after  the  violation  of  his  own  royal  decree  and  the 
Jewish  code  of  ethics  in  going  to  seek  information  from 
the  dead,  is  but  in  keeping  with  the  last  results  we 
have  observed  in  modern  times,  of  many  who  seek  com¬ 
fort  and  guidance  at  the  broken  cisterns  of  spiritism. 
I  know  of  a  number  of  instances  where  individuals  like 
Saul,  after  seeking  advice  from  mediums  and  clairvoy¬ 
ants,  have  likewise  filled  the  grave  of  a  miserable  suicide. 


188 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


9.  CHRISTIANITY  AND  SPIRITUALISM 

Gibbon,  in  his  famous  fifteenth  chapter,  marks  as  one 
of  the  five  causes  of  the  growth  of  Christianity,  “the 
doctrine  of  a  future  life,  improved  by  every  additional 
circumstance  which  could  give  weight  and  efficacy  to 
that  important  truth;”  and  in  the  true  spirit  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  he  goes  on  to  remark  that  “it  is  no 
wonder  that  so  advantageous  an  offer  (eternal  happi¬ 
ness)  should  have  been  accepted  by  great  numbers  of 
every  religion,  of  every  rank,  and  of  every  province  in 
the  Roman  Empire.”  The  historian  is  right  when  he 
thus  sees  in  Christianity  the  religion  of  immortality, 
though  he  fails  to  throw  light  on  the  curious  phenom¬ 
enon  that  a  truth  which,  on  his  own  admission  has 
been  for  centuries  in  possession  of  the  greater  portion 
of  civilized  men,  had  proved  of  small  account,  yet  in 
the  new  religion  swept  over  the  Graeco-Roman  world 
and  eventually  transformed  it. 

But  an  equally  important  question  is  raised  when  the 
sociological  effect  of  this  theory  is  contemplated.  Con¬ 
vince  men  generally  that  consciousness  ends  in  the 
grave,  deprive  them  of  that  optimism  that  lies  hidden 
in  the  heart,  however  it  may  be  derided  by  the  tongue, 
and  what  right  have  you  to  expect  enterprise,  adven¬ 
ture,  the  courage  of  the  pioneer,  the  forward  move¬ 
ment  of  the  forces  that  make  for  progress  and  civiliza¬ 
tion?  It  was  Renan  who  said  that  it  would  be  a  fatal 
day  for  any  nation  when  it  gave  up  belief  in  immor- 


Moral  and  Ethical  Aspects 


189 


tality.  His  shrewd  eye  saw  that  behind  disbelief  in  a 
life  beyond  lay  disbelief  in  the  value  of  personality. 
Look  at  Germany,  where,  among  the  educated  classes, 
faith  in  immortality  has  been  scorned  as  one  of  the 
main  buttresses  of  superstition,  and  where  dogmatic 
materialism  in  the  person  of  Professor  Haeckel  still 
plants  its  banner. 

Again,  the  idea  of  Christ’s  mission  being  that  of  a 
life-giver,  and  that  this  life  pertains  to  something  un¬ 
usual  and  out  of  the  ordinary,  is  further  carried  out  by 
the  statement  of  John  10:10,  “The  thief  cometh  not  but 
for  to  steal,  and  to  kill,  and  to  destroy;  I  am  come  that 
they  might  have  life,  and  that  they  might  have  it  more 
abundantly.”  And  in  the  twenty-eighth  and  twenty- 
ninth  verses  he  further  carries  out  this  same  idea: 
“And  I  give  unto  them  eternal  life;  and  they  shall 
never  perish,  neither  shall  any  man  pluck  them  out  of 
my  hand.  My  Father  which  gave  them  me  is  greater 
than  all;  and  no  man  is  able  to  pluck  them  out  of  my 
Father’s  hand.” 

John,  it  would  seem,  designed  to  teach  that  immor¬ 
tality  was  conditional  upon  Christian  belief;  that  the 
theology  of  it  consisted  in  the  recognition  of  everlast¬ 
ing  life  as  a  gift  made  possible  by  the  sacrificial  mission 
of  Christ  in  the  role  of  the  world’s  Redeemer.  This 
seems  also  to  be  the  purport  of  the  statement  of  the 
first  epistle  of  John,  5:11-13:  “And  this  is  the  record, 
that  God  hath  given  to  us  eternal  life,  and  this  life  is 


190 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


in  His  Son.  These  things  I  have  written  unto  you  that 
believe  in  the  name  of  the  Son  of  God;  that  ye  may 
know  that  ye  have  eternal  life,  and  that  ye  may  be¬ 
lieve  in  the  name  of  the  Son  of  God.”  And  the  apostle 
Paul  seems  to  have  carried  out  the  same  teaching  in 
his  philosophy,  where  he  says,  in  Romans  6:23:  “For 
the  wages  of  sin  is  death;  but  the  gift  of  God  is  eternal 
life  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.” 

10.  MODERN  THEOLOGICAL  VIEWS 

The  theological  views  respecting  spiritualism  may  be 
divided  into  several  groups: 

a.  The  orthodox  viewpoint .  The  orthodox  Christian 
religions  frankly  believe  and  teach  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  and  in  the  absence  of  any  direct  instruction  as 
pertains  to  spiritualistic  practices,  leave  the  door  wide 
open  for  their  communicants  to  dabble  with  spiritism 
and  indulge  in  experimental  efforts  to  communicate 
with  the  dead. 

b.  The  Oriental  viewpoint.  Both  the  Judaistic  and 
the  Hindu  doctrines  do  not  offer  much  encouragement 
to  spiritualism.  The  Old  Testament  scriptures  of  the 
Jews  seem  to  teach  that  there  is  little  hope  of  communi¬ 
cating  with  those  who  have  once  entered  the  portals  of 
the  tomb. 

c.  The  Soul  Sleepers.  The  Seventh  Day  Adventists 
and  some  other  sects  are  inclined  to  view  the  status  of 
the  dead  much  in  accordance  with  the  teachings  of  the 


Moral  and  Ethical  Aspects 


191 


old  Hebrew  scriptures,  believing  that  mortals  who  have 
closed  their  eyes  in  death  do  not  return  to  this  planet, 
that  their  records  are  preserved  on  high,  and  that  they 
will  be  duly  resurrected  at  a  future  Day  of  Judgment, 
there  to  appear  before  the  Magistrate  of  all  the  Uni¬ 
verse,  to  be  judged  according  to  the  deeds  done  in  the 
body,  and  that  subsequent  to  this  judgment  the  right¬ 
eous  enter  the  Gates  of  Paradise  while  the  unworthy 
are  condemned  to  the  nether  regions. 

d.  The  Catholic  View.  It  seems  to  be  the  disposition 
on  the  part  of  many  Catholic  authorities  and  publica¬ 
tions  to  admit  the  possible  genuineness  of  some  spiritual 
communications,  but  at  the  same  time  to  forbid  all 
efforts  to  communicate  with  these  supernatural  intel¬ 
ligences.  To  dabble  with  spiritualism  is  regarded  as  a 
wicked  practice.  It  seems  to  have  been  officially  de¬ 
creed  by  the  Sacred  Roman  Congregation  that  “As 
matters  stand,  it  is  not  allowable.” 

e.  The  Spiritualistic  Viewpoint.  To  the  spiritualist, 
Christ  is  the  Master  Medium.  All  of  the  Oriental 
mysticism  of  Holy  Writ,  and  all  references  to  the  “Me¬ 
diator,”  the  “Holy  Ghost,”  and  what  not,  are  sup¬ 
posed  to  be  allusions  to  the  power  of  mediumship, 
with  its  ability  to  bridge  the  gulf  between  the  seen  and 
the  unseen  worlds. 

To  the  spiritualist,  the  resurrection  of  Christ  was  a 
master  materialization,  a  perfect  type  of  the  ability  of 
the  spirit  to  materialize  itself  so  that  it  can  be  seen, 


192 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


heard,  and  handled  by  other  living  and  material  beings. 
Likewise  every  allusion  of  the  Bible  to  “ministering 
angels,”  every  reference  to  “demons  and  devils,”  is 
assumed  to  constitute  a  scriptural  backing  for  the 
present-day  belief  in  the  dogmas  of  spiritualism.  One 
spiritualist  has  said:  “Take  out  of  the  Bible  all 
reference  to  spirits  and  angels,  and  the  remainder 
will  be  only  a  mass  of  fables.” 

As  we  have  seen,  while  spiritualism  is  not  a  new  doc¬ 
trine —  it  is  as  old  as  the  human  race  —  yet  spiritual¬ 
ism  as  an  affiliation  with  the  Christian  religion  is  a 
comparatively  new  and  recent  phenomenon.  Only  in 
the  last  two  generations  have  mediums  —  those  who 
profess  to  communicate  with  the  spirits  of  the  dead  — 
claimed  to  base  their  teachings  and  to  justify  their 
practices  by  an  appeal  to  the  scriptures  of  the  Christian 
religion. 

f.  The  Hypothesis  of  the  Universal  Mind.  Many 
sober-minded  philosophers  of  today  who  are  quite 
averse  to  accepting  the  tenets  of  spiritualism  —  the 
doctrine  of  the  dead  communicating  with  the  living 
—  are  disposed  to  believe  in  the  existence  of  a  Universal 
Spiritual  Mind  with  which  the  Spiritual  Monitors  of 
men  may  possibly  be  able  to  communicate  when  they 
are  properly  attuned. 


CHAPTER  VII 


THE  CONCLUSION  OF  THE  WHOLE  MATTER 


HE  believers  in  spiritualism  are  wont  to  point 


J-  with  pride  to  certain  scientific  men  whom  they 
claim  as  converts;  but  careful  investigation  proves  that 
many  of  these  men  do  not  confirm  these  claims  but 
instead  most  strenuously  maintain  that  they  are  not 
spiritualists.  For  example,  Flammarion,  whom  the 
spiritualists  have  claimed  as  a  convert,  says,  in  a  book 
published  as  far  back  as  1907,  that  he  is  not  and  never 
was  a  spiritualist.  In  this  connection  he  publishes  a 
letter  from  Schiaparelli,  whom  the  spiritualists  have 
also  claimed,  disavowing  his  belief  in  all  such  phenom¬ 
ena.  Even  Professor  Richet,  although  he  has  ad¬ 
mitted  belief  in  some  sorts  of  materialization,  is  not  a 
spiritualist,  as  ordinarily  understood.  Professor  Mor- 
selli,  who  has  been  heralded  by  the  spiritualists  as  a 
believer  in  the  cult,  has  characterized  the  interpreta¬ 
tion  of  their  phenomena  as  “childish,  absurd,  and  im¬ 
moral.” 

On  the  other  hand,  it  should  be  stated  that  some 
men  entitled  to  at  least  some  claim  of  scientific  emi¬ 
nence,  have  admitted  that  they  have  been  puzzled  by 
certain  spiritualistic  phenomena,  such  as  raps  and  other 


193 


194 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


minor  manifestations.  Some  have  been  inclined  to  be¬ 
lieve  that  there  might  be  something  abnormal,  if  not 
supernatural,  about  certain  spiritualistic  manifesta¬ 
tions;  among  this  group  we  migh  mention  Richet, 
Flornoy,  Carrington,  and  Maxwell.  But  it  should  be 
stated  that  the  majority  of  the  scientists  who  are  dis¬ 
posed  to  believe  some  of  the  phenomena  produced  by 
mediums,  do  not  for  a  moment  attribute  these  per¬ 
formances  to  spirit  agencies.  They  merely  think  that 
they  have  excluded  all  possible  fraud,  and  while  they 
do  not  admit  the  hypothesis  of  these  phenomena  being 
executed  by  discarnate  spirits,  they  are  left  in  the  per¬ 
plexed  attitude  of  finding  an  alternative  explanation  or 
hypothesis  to  account  for  the  medium’s  performance. 

1.  PROFESSOR  WILLIAM  CROOKES  AND  OTHERS 

Spiritualists  have  made  much  of  the  investigations, 
by  Professor  Crookes,  of  that  pretty  little  Hackney 
girl,  Florence  Cook,  who  early  became  one  of  the  re¬ 
nowned  mediums  of  England,  at  least  for  a  while. 
Crookes  was  a  young  scientist,  and  at  the  time  Florrie 
materialized  at  his  house  he  wrote  two  or  three  letters 
telling  of  the  wonderful  things  which  he  saw.  It  should 
be  said  that  he  did  not  re-publish  these  letters  later  in 
life,  and  that  later  on  he  all  but  gave  up  his  confidence 
in  the  whole  spiritualistic  movement. 

While  Florrie  Cook,  the  medium,  was  supposed  to 
be  lying  on  the  floor  in  an  improvised  cabinet,  a  beau- 


Conclusion 


195 


tiful  and  romantic  maiden,  the  alleged  Katie  King, 
walked  about  the  room  and  told  his  children  of  her  life 
in  India  long,  long  ago.  She  even  took  the  Professor’s 
arm  on  one  occasion  and  walked  across  the  floor  with 
him,  and  from  his  brief  letters  it  is  very  evident  that 
Katie  King  was  more  than  an  ethereal  apparition.  She 
must  have  been  a  very  solid  sort  of  human  being,  because 
the  Professor  tells  of  feeling  her  pulse  and  auscultating 
her  heart,  and  even  went  so  far  as  to  cut  off  one 
of  her  auburn  curls  —  a  liberty  which  the  spiritualists 
will  not  allow  us  with  the  famed  ectoplasm  of  more  re¬ 
cent  materializations,  averring  that  to  sever  the  ecto¬ 
plasm  would  mean  the  death  of  the  medium.  In  one  of 
his  letters,  the  Professor  breaks  off  abruptly  in  des¬ 
cribing  a  spiritistic  flirtation  up  to  this  point,  and 
merely  asks  what  any  man  would  do  under  the  circum¬ 
stances  —  leaving  us  of  course  to  infer  that  the  average 
human  would  probably  discover  that  the  maiden  had 
warm  breath  like  any  other  individual  who  had  been  so 
materialistic  up  to  that  point. 

It  is  interesting  to  note,  in  the  case  of  Professor 
Hyslop,  who  did  so  much  in  connection  with  Dr. 
Hodgson  to  initiate  psychic  investigation  in  the  United 
States,  that  while  he  was  a  logical  thinker  —  in  fact  at 
one  time  Professor  of  Logic  at  Columbia  University  — 
he  did  not  take  up  the  investigation  of  spirit  phenomena 
until  prolonged  ill-health  compelled  him  to  resign  his 
professorship  at  the  University.  And  it  is  well  known 


196  The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 

that  Professor  Hyslop’s  belief  that  he  had  been  able 
to  communicate  with  his  associate  and  co-worker.  Dr. 
Hodgson,  was  all  based  upon  the  writing  phenomenon 
of  Mrs.  Piper,  the  Boston  medium,  while  in  a  state  of 
trance  or  catalepsy. 

Some  good  has  been  done  by  the  psychic  researchers, 
at  any  rate,  in  that  they  have  exposed  many  of  the 
more  palpable  medium  frauds,  such  as  Mme.  Blavat- 
sky,  and  others. 

And  so  the  story  might  be  continued,  reciting  how 
the  great  and  the  near-great  have,  from  time  to  time, 
dabbled  in  spiritualism,  and  undertaken  to  investigate 
its  numerous  phenomena.  But  the  reader  will  ob¬ 
serve  that  there  is  indeed  a  paucity  of  real  scientists 
who  have  ever  become  serious-minded  converts  to 
spiritualism;  and  even  in  the  case  of  those  who  have 
espoused  the  cause,  practically  none  of  them  —  except 
in  the  case  of  William  Crookes  —  was  ever  known  to 
believe  in  its  tenets  in  his  younger  years.  Most  of  the 
so-called  great  men  who  have  espoused  spiritualism 
have  done  so  subsequent  to,  or  about  the  time  of  reach¬ 
ing  that  psychically  susceptible  age  of  “three  score 
years  and  ten.”  This  is  indeed  unfortunate,  for  this 
whole  subject,  as  regards  its  physical  manifestations, 
spirit  photography,  etc.,  would  have  been  long  since 
largely  cleared  up  had  more  men  of  scientific  ability 
turned  their  attention  to  its  investigation  earlier  in 
life. 


Conclusion 


197 


2.  SIR  ARTHUR  CONAN  DOYLE 

Sir  Arthur  seems  to  possess  anything  but  the  scien¬ 
tific  attitude  —  the  analytical  mind  —  that  is  required 
properly  to  investigate  the  phenomena  of  spiritualism. 
His  judgment  seems  to  be  precipitate,  his  discrimina¬ 
tion  defective  —  not  to  say  anything  in  question  of  his 
discretion.  The  childlike  credulity  with  which  he  ac¬ 
cepts  phenomena  as  evidential,  in  support  of  spiritism, 
is  pathetic,  as  evidenced  by  the  haste  with  which  he 
sent  to  the  London  Daily  Mail  on  December  16,  1919, 
a  photograph  of  an  alleged  picture  of  Christ,  which  he 
said  had  been  “done”  in  but  a  few  hours  by  a  lady  who 
had  had  no  previous  artistic  training  or  experience  in 
portrait  painting.  Doyle  thought  the  picture  “a  mas¬ 
terpiece,”  contending  that  it  was  such  a  wonderful 
painting  that  “  a  great  painter  in  Paris  (whose  name  un¬ 
fortunately  was  withheld)  fell  instantly  upon  his 
knees”  in  breathless  admiration  before  such  a  marvel¬ 
ous  production.  Doyle  thought  this  painting  was  “a 
supreme  example”  of  a  spiritualistic  miracle.  Now,  the 
sequel  of  this  hasty  act  on  the  part  of  Sir  Arthur  is  dis¬ 
closed  in  a  letter  written  on  December  31,  by  the  ar¬ 
tist’s  husband  to  the  Daily  Mail ,  from  which  it  will 
suffice  to  quote  a  single  paragraph:  “Mrs.  Spencer 
wishes  definitely  to  state,  once  and  for  all,  that  her  pic¬ 
tures  are  painted  in  a  perfectly  normal  manner,  that 
the  is  disgusted  at  having  ‘psychic  power'  attributed 
to  her,  and  that  she  does  not  cherish  any  ludicrous  or 


198  The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 

mawkish  sentiments  about  helping  humanity  by  her 
painting.” 

It  seems  that  Sir  Arthur  is  given  to  being  over¬ 
impressed  by  spiritualistic  seances  and  that  he  is  given 
to  over-exaggeration.  A  number  of  these  indiscretions 
are  noted  by  McCabe  in  the  following  indictment: 
“He  said  that  Eusapia  Palladino  was  quite  honest  in 
the  first  fifteen  years  of  her  mediumship;  that  he  had 
given  me  the  names  of  forty  spiritualist  professors;  that 
the  Fox  sisters  were  at  first  honest;  that  I  did  not  give 
the  evidence  from  his  books  correctly;  that  Mr.  Lethem 
got  certain  detailed  information  the  first  time  he  con¬ 
sulted  a  medium;  that  in  Mme.  Bisson’s  book  you  can 
see  ectoplasm  pouring  from  the  medium’s  'nose,  eyes, 
ears,  and  skin:’  that  Florrie  Cook  'never  took  one 
penny  of  money;’  that  in  the  Belfast  experiment  the 
table  rose  to  the  ceiling,  and  so  on.  His  frame  of  mind 
was  extraordinary.” 

From  a  theological  standpoint  it  is  necessary  to 
recognize  that  Doyle  repudiates  all  belief  ia  the  sacri¬ 
ficial,  or  atoning  significance  of  Christ’s  life  and  death, 
as  in  fact  do  most  of  the  out-and-out  believers  ia 
modern  spiritualism.  It  has  seemed  to  me  very  incon¬ 
sistent  for  the  spiritualists  to  quibble  with  believing  ia 
the  miracles  of  Biblical  record  when  they  are  so  willing 
to  accept,  with  child-like  and  open-mouthed  credulity 
as  miracles,  those  performances  which  the  most  super¬ 
ficial  investigation  discloses  to  be  wholly  or  partially 


Conclusion 


199 


fraudulent.  In  the  case  of  Doyle,  I  am  almost  led  to 
believe  that  he  has  reached  that  time  of  life  when  his 
wonderful  gift  for  creating  fictitious  characters  has  be¬ 
come  hooked  up  in  his  brain  with  his  will  to  believe  in 
spirits,  and  that  the  “feeling  of  reality”  has  become 
projected  outward  from  his  subconscious  centers  onto 
these  spiritistic  brain  children  to  such  an  extent  that 
he  has  come  actually  to  believe  in  the  reality  of  the 
fictitious  creations  of  his  own  mind.  How  else  can  we 
reconcile  the  statements  and  conduct  of  such  a  cul¬ 
tured  gentleman,  on  the  one  hand,  with  the  child-like 
credulity  and  willingness  to  be  deceived  by  such  com¬ 
monplace  phenomena? 

3.  SIR  OLIVER  LODGE 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge  is  the  one  great  surprise  of  present- 
day  spiritualism.  The  varying  degrees  to  which  most 
of  the  men  who  are  entitled  to  be  called  scientists 
have  dabbled  in  spiritism  can  be  more  or  less  under¬ 
stood,  and  we  can  understand  how  the  novelist,  Doyle, 
in  spite  of  his  medical  training,  could  become  enamored 
of  its  tenets  and  phenomena.  But  Lodge  is  more  or  less 
of  a  conundrum,  though  it  must  be  remembered  that 
he  is  very  chary  in  his  statements  as  to  just  how  far  he 
accepts  or  endorses  any  given  spiritistic  manifestation 
or  phenomenon.  It  must  be  remembered  that,  in 
bringing  out  his  book  Raymond ,  purporting  to  be  a 
record  of  more  or  less  indirect  communication  with  his 


200 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


deceased  son,  he  is  very  careful  not  to  guarantee  the 
narrative.  Sir  Oliver  has  a  unique  way  —  one  quite 
his  own  —  of  throwing  his  personal  influence  almost 
unreservedly  in  the  scale  of  modern  spiritualism,  with 
all  that  the  name  implies,  while  at  the  same  time  he 
preserves  the  form  of  that  scientific  reserve  —  that 
noncommittal  attitude  —  which  is  supposed  to  charac¬ 
terize  the  scientist,  when  it  comes  to  the  acceptance  or 
endorsement  of  a  specific  bit  of  spiritualistic  propa¬ 
ganda.  His  attitude,  as  I  see  it,  seems  to  be  something 
like  this:  I  accept  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  spirit¬ 
ualism;  I  even  believe  in  most  of  its  mediumistic  mani¬ 
festations;  but  I  must  not  be  held  strictly  to  account, 
or  responsible  for,  any  specific  phenomena. 

In  presenting  this  book,  Raymond ,  to  the  public,  Sir 
Oliver  hedges  considerably.  He  believes  that  he  has 
been  in  communication  with  his  son,  but  in  all  proba¬ 
bility  he  dislikes  to  become  personally  responsible  for 
all  the  puerile  twaddle  that  the  mediums  produced  in 
the  name  of  his  son.  In  fact,  when  we  carefully  study 
his  introduction  to  this  narrative,  we  sometimes  wonder 
whether  he  intended  the  book  to  be  taken  seriously  by 
the  public,  as  it  evidently  has  been  by  spiritualists  and 
thousands  of  others. 

It  seems  that  Raymond,  Sir  Oliver’s  son,  was  not 
able  directly  to  get  in  touch  with  an  individual  whom 
he  could  use  as  a  direct  voice  medium,  as  Sir  A.  C. 
Doyle’s  son  is  supposed  to  have  done,  in  communica- 


Conclusion 


201 


ting  with  his  father.  In  fact,  it  would  appear  that  Ray¬ 
mond  was  not  able  directly  to  communicate  through 
Mrs.  Leonard,  his  medium.  It  seems  that  he  was  com¬ 
pelled,  by  the  situation  in  the  spirit  world,  or  by 
circumstances  in  this  mundane  sphere,  to  employ  a 
secondary — or,  what  might  be  called  an  intermediary — 
spirit,  the  spirit  of  a  child  named  Feda,  and  in  this  way 
it  is  alleged  that  he  was  able  to  communicate  through 
the  medium,  Mrs.  Leonard,  with  his  father. 

4.  SUMMER  LAND  AND  ITS  CITIZENS 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  or  rather  Raymond,  tells  us  that 
the  abode  of  spirits  is  known  locally  to  him  as  “Sum¬ 
mer  Land,”  and  he  tells  us  that  the  young  rapidly  reach 
maturity,  and  that  the  old  go  back  to  a  more  or  less 
adult,  or  middle  age  state.  Now  this  seems  hard  to 
reconcile  with  Sir  Arthur's  teaching,  as  I  heard  him 
proclaim,  when  on  his  lecture  tour  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  that  the  bereaved  mothers  would  see  their 
blue-eyed,  golden  haired  children  just  as  they  were  when 
they  departed  this  life,  and  would  be  able  to  recognize 
them  as  they  clasped  them  in  their  arms.  But  spirit¬ 
ualists  are  used  to  meeting  minor  difficulties  like  this, 
and  to  explaining  away  trifling  inconsistencies  of  this 
sort.  It  doesn’t  seem  to  hurt  the  movement  —  it  goes 
serenely  on. 

I  have  recently  tried  to  harmonize  these  inconsis¬ 
tencies  when  in  communication  with  some  of  the  great 


202 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


scientists  of  spirit  land,  but  instead  of  getting  help  I 
have  only  been  led  into  confusion  worse  confounded, 
because  they  variously  tell  entirely  different  stories. 
But  a  short  time  back  the  great  Darwin  assured  me  (at 
least  the  medium  communicated  the  information  to 
me)  that  “there  is  nothing  material  in  spirit  land  ex¬ 
cept  the  condensation,  or  crystallization,  of  the  good 
thoughts  and  good  deeds  of  departed  mortals.,,  If  I 
were  dependent  on  my  information  from  spirit  land  for 
my  concept  of  the  philosophy  of  a  future  life,  my  con¬ 
fusion  would  long  since  have  become  so  hopeless  as  to 
have  led  me  either  into  crass  materialism  on  the  one 
hand,  or  to  have  driven  me  into  the  vestibule  of  an 
insane  asylum  on  the  other  hand. 

The  Biblical  portrayal  of  the  future  life  and  the  fu¬ 
ture  home  of  the  salvaged  mortals  from  this  planet  is 
certainly  a  more  cheerful  picture  than  that  which  is 
depicted  in  Raymond’s  revelations.  The  concept  of 
orthodox  Christianity  is  certainly  superior,  with  its 
golden  New  Jerusalem,  to  the  melancholy  spectacle 
that  Raymond  paints  of  his  brick  house,  muddy  streets, 
odorous  effluvia,  and  unspeakable  manure. 

5.  MY  OWN  CONCLUSIONS 

Spiritualism  is  not  a  matter  which  can  be  finally  ad¬ 
judged  in  the  experimental  laboratory.  Investigations 
extending  over  a  period  of  twenty-five  years  have  con¬ 
vinced  me  that  more  than  nine-tenths  of  all  so-called 


Conclusion 


203 


spiritualistic  phenomena  are  purely  fraudulent,  sheer 
chicanery  and  trickery;  and  even  if  we  were  willing  to 
admit  that  in  certain  rare  cases  real  phenomena  are 
produced  in  the  name  of  spiritualism,  we  would  have  to 
confess  that,  as  yet,  we  have  not  met  such  genuine  man¬ 
ifestations.  After  all,  spiritistic  (genuine)  manifesta¬ 
tions  are  beyond  the  pale  of  scientific  investigation. 
They  are  problems  in  theology  and  religion. 

The  mediums  have  failed  to  pass  the  real  tests.  They 
have  failed  to  meet  the  conditions  which  are  required 
by  science  to  establish  their  claims.  They  have  failed, 
when  brought  face  to  face  with  conditions  that  would 
permit  the  production  of  manifestations  of  real  evi¬ 
dential  value. 

It  would  seem  the  time  had  come  when  intelligent 
human  beings  might  indulge  the  hope  of  survival  after 
death  without  exposing  themselves  to  the  sophistries 
and  delusions  of  so-called  spiritualism.  It  would  seem 
that  modern  science  would  afford  us  an  ample  basis  on 
which  modern  man  could  securely  rest  and  upon  which 
he  could  safely  entertain  religious  beliefs  and  indulge  in 
the  hope  of  immortality,  without  the  necessity  and 
danger  of  exposure  to  the  flagrant  deceptions  of  oc¬ 
cultism  and  spiritism. 

It  would  seem  that  it  might  be  possible  for  intelligent 
men  and  women  to  indulge  in  the  hope  of  survival  after 
death,  to  study  psychic  phenomena,  and  to  investigate 
the  unusual  and  the  extraordinary,  without  having  to 


204 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


commit  themselves,  as  it  were,  in  advance,  to  those 
dogmas  and  beliefs  which  render  it  almost  inevitable 
that  ere  their  researches  are  finished  they  shall  find 
themselves  landed  squarely  into  the  ranks  of  the  occult¬ 
ists  or  spiritualists. 

What,  then,  are  the  net  end  results  of  spiritualism, 
taken  as  a  whole?  What  is  its  influence  upon  the  indi¬ 
vidual  who  seeks  help  and  comfort  at  its  shrines?  The 
net  results  of  spiritualism  upon  the  people  as  a  whole 
would  be  difficult  to  estimate.  No  doubt  there  are 
thousands  of  earnest  souls  who  believe  that  they  have 
been  led  nearer  to  God,  and  who  look  upon  spiritualism 
and  upon  spiritistic  teachings  as  a  means  whereby  they 
have  been  delivered  from  benighted  materialism.  No 
doubt  many  of  the  recent  converts  to  spiritualism  feel 
that  they  have,  in  accepting  its  tenets,  come  out  of 
darkness  into  light,  but  it  has  been  my  observation,  in 
those  cases  which  I  have  been  privileged  to  study  over 
a  long  period  of  years,  that  the  results  of  spiritualism 
are  highly  unfortunate.  They  have  led  to  disappoint¬ 
ment,  misfortune,  sorrow,  and  in  many  cases  to  in¬ 
sanity. 

I  remember,  years  ago,  when  a  well-known  medium 
had  put  me  in  contact  with  the  spirit  of  Abraham  Lin¬ 
coln,  who  spent  the  time  discussing  two  or  three  trivial 
things  with  me,  having  to  do  with  something  I  had 
lost,  instead  of  giving  the  world  a  second  Gettysburg 
address.  Anyone  who  knew  anything  of  the  life  and 


Conclusion 


205 


work  of  Abraham  Lincoln  would  know  that  I  was  not 
talking  with  his  spirit  —  as  I  well  knew  it.  If  the  spirits 
of  these  great  men  of  bygone  ages  could  be  called  up, 
it  stands  to  reason  that  we  would  hear  something 
characteristic  of  them.  Who  can  imagine  the  spirit  of 
Theodore  Roosevelt  coming  up  at  a  seance,  and  indulg¬ 
ing  in  the  frivolous  patter  that  these  mediums  seek  to 
portray  from  time  to  time  as  they  juggle  with  these 
spirits  of  well-known  departed  individuals?  And  yet 
there  is  a  fascination  about  the  whole  thing  that  be¬ 
comes  supremely  attractive  to  many  seemingly  intelli¬ 
gent  persons  —  men  who  have  the  brains  to  be  editors, 
lawyers,  doctors,  preachers,  psychologists,  and  scien¬ 
tists. 


6.  THE  STORY  SUMMARIZED 

To  summarize  our  examination  of  spiritualism,  then, 
we  find  that  the  belief  of  the  living  in  their  ability  to 
communicate  with  the  dead  is  a  very  ancient  one. 
From  the  earliest  dawn  of  civilization  we  find  spirit¬ 
ualism  practiced  under  first  one  guise  and  then  another, 
known  by  numerous  names  in  various  ages. 

We  find  that  modern  spiritism  probably  had  its  ini¬ 
tial  impetus  with  the  teachings  of  Swedenborg;  that 
spiritualism  as  an  organized  religion,  promoted  and 
fostered  by  commercial  mediumship,  had  its  origin 
with  the  Fox  sisters  in  the  state  of  New  York  in  1848; 
and  that  it  spread  rapidly  over  the  English  speaking 


206 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


world;  that  we  have  had  recurrent  waves  of  it  in  every 
generation  —  once  every  twenty-five  or  thirty  years; 
that  repeated  exposure  of  its  more  palpable  frauds  has 
led  to  a  gradual  improvement  of  its  technique  and  an 
elimination  of  its  grosser  fraudulent  practices. 

We  have  seen  how  spiritualism  grew  up  in  America 
round  the  Reverend  Moses,  and  in  England  about  the 
medium,  Home.  We  have  further  traced,  decade  by 
decade,  the  rise  and  fall  of  famous  mediums,  beginning 
with  Slade,  the  slate  writer,  and  embracing  a  sordid 
procession  of  mediumistic  frauds,  ending  in  the  more 
recent  grotesque  exposure  of  Eusapia  Palladino,  the 
classic  Italian  medium. 

In  no  case  have  the  physical  manifestations  of  spirit¬ 
ism  passed  the  tests  of  science.  Numerous  tempting  re¬ 
wards  of  money  are  still  available  in  this  country  and 
in  Europe  for  any  medium  who  can  prove  his  ability 
to  produce  physical  manifestations  due  entirely  to 
spirit  agencies. 

We  have  discussed  and  disclosed  the  tricks  of  the  se¬ 
ance  room  —  how  voices  are  produced  and  talking 
trumpets  are  operated.  Herein  are  found  exposed  the 
methods  whereby  mediums  produce  lights,  spirit  robes, 
read  sealed  writings,  write  on  sealed  slates,  and  so  on 
down  through  the  whole  mechanical  mess  of  tricks  and 
tricksters,  including  the  ouija  board,  materializations, 
spirit  photographs,  spirit  paintings,  clairvoyance  and 
fortune  telling.  The  whole  thing  is  clearly  shown  and 


Conclusion 


207 


conclusively  proved  to  be  fraud.  I  am  prepared,  finally 
and  deliberately,  after  a  quarter  of  a  century  of  study, 
observation,  and  personal  experience  with  mediums, 
psychics,  and  sensitives,  to  record  it  as  my  deliberate 
opinion  that  all  of  the  physical  manifestations  of  spirit¬ 
ualism  are  a  fraud.  I  do  not  believe  that  discarnate 
spirits  are  in  any  way  connected  with  this  phase  of  the 
cult,  neither  do  I  believe  that  spiritualism  in  its  phys¬ 
ical  manifestations  is  the  work  of  the  devil,  or  of  any 
other  sort  of  evil  spirit,  but  that  it  is  a  work  of  pure  and 
undefiled  legerdemain. 

As  regards  the  psychic  manifestations  of  spiritual¬ 
ism,  I  have  endeavored  first  to  show  how  well  known 
and  accepted  principles  of  human  psychology  are  ade¬ 
quate  fully  to  explain  and  account  for  practically  all  of 
the  psychic  manifestations  brought  forward  in  the 
name  of  spiritualism.  I  have  shown  that  in  all  these 
cases  which  I  have  personally  investigated,  and  which 
have  been  under  my  professional  care  —  these  psychi¬ 
cally  abnormal  individuals  ranging  from  clairvoyants 
and  sensitives  down  through  all  sorts  of  mediums  to  the 
borderline  of  the  insanities  —  the  psychological  hy¬ 
pothesis  is  fully  adequate  in  every  way,  satisfactorily 
to  explain  the  psychic  phenomena  of  this  whole  group 
of  patients,  mediums,  and  other  sorts  of  psychics. 

Of  course  I  cannot  be  scientifically  certain  that  evil 
ghosts  and  vagabond  spirits,  or  some  other  agency  of 
His  Satanic  Majesty,  may  not  be  at  the  bottom  of  cer- 


208 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


tain  rare  cases  of  psychic  phenomena  brought  forward 
under  the  guise  of  spiritism.  I  say,  I  cannot,  as  a 
scientist,  settle  this  question.  It  may  be  true  that  in 
some  cases  the  devils  are  in  league  with  the  mediums, 
and  cunningly  assist  them  in  perpetrating  some  of  the 
psychic  phenomena  which  they  bring  forward  in  the 
name  of  spiritualism.  But  while  I  admit  the  possi¬ 
bility  of  some  sort  of  connection  between  spiritualism 
and  demonism,  I  desire  emphatically  to  record  that  I 
have  not  personally  investigated  the  case  of  any  me¬ 
dium,  or  other  psychic,  professing  to  be  a  channel  of 
communication  between  the  living  and  the  dead,  where 
I  have  been  in  the  least  inclined  to  resort  to  this  hy¬ 
pothesis  in  order  to  account  for  the  phenomena 
observed.  In  those  cases  coming  under  my  personal  ob¬ 
servation,  in  practically  every  instance,  I  have  been 
able  in  my  own  mind  to  reach  conclusions  which  were 
adequately  supported  by  the  known  truths,  facts,  and 
experiences  of  modern  psychology. 

Double  personality  and  dissociation  have  served  to 
explain  many  things  otherwise  mysterious  to  the  pres¬ 
ent  generation.  No  longer  are  we  in  doubt  as  to  the 
nature  of  many  of  the  peculiar  psychic  manifestations 
on  record  from  ancient  times  down  to  the  present  mo¬ 
ment.  Even  the  connection  of  our  dream  life,  with  re¬ 
ligion  and  spiritism,  has  been  more  or  less  fully 
explained  by  recent  psychologic  developments. 

Trances,  visions,  and  speaking  with  tongues,  so  far 


Conclusion 


209 


as  I  have  studied  these  phenomena,  are  fully  explained 
by  well-known  and  established  psychologic  data. 
Again,  I  would  distinctly  disclaim  all  intention  of  dis¬ 
cussing  or  commenting  upon  the  genuine  Seers  of 
either  ancient  or  modern  times.  The  prophets  of  the 
Almighty  are  not  under  discussion  in  this  thesis.  If 
there  be  those  who  had  visions  in  the  olden  time,  who 
were  the  voice  of  “One  crying  in  the  wilderness ;”  and 
if  there  be  those  who  have  visions  in  modern  times  (and 
I  have  met  a  few  of  this  sort  who  were  very  difficult  to 
understand  and  adequately  explain  on  purely  psycho¬ 
logic  grounds)  I  say,  if  there  be  those  who  have  seen  a 
vision  in  our  day  and  generation,  it  is  farthest  from  our 
purpose  either  to  judge  or  stigmatize  them.  But  again, 
I  hasten  to  record  the  fact  that  those  few  cases  of 
psychic  phenomena  coming  under  my  observation, 
which  might  possibly  be  of  supernatural  origin,  had 
nothing  whatever  in  common  with  spiritualism.  In 
fact,  I  may  say  that  they  were  more  or  less  actively 
anti-spiritualistic,  and  therefore  their  presentation  or 
study  does  not  concern  us  in  this  work. 

The  employment  of  either  hypnotism  or  the  methods 
of  psychoanalysis,  insofar  as  these  methods  have  been 
applied  to  mediums,  has  served  to  show  that  their 
spirits  or  images  originate  in  their  own  subconscious 
minds;  that  they  are  self-deceived  humans;  that  there 
is  nothing  supernatural  about  the  ghosts  they  see  or 
the  messages  they  purport  to  receive;  that  the  whole 


210 


The  Truth  About  Spiritualism 


thing  is  a  trick  made  possible  by  the  subconscious  —  by 
means  of  the  well-known  psychic  laws  of  mental  trans¬ 
ference  and  psychic  projection. 

As  to  the  moral  and  ethical  standing  of  mediums,  the 
less  said  the  better.  The  whole  movement  has  miser¬ 
ably  failed  in  contributing  to  progress  and  the  advance¬ 
ment  of  the  spiritual  aspects  of  modern  civilization. 
The  rhetoric  of  the  mediums  is  puerile  and  silly.  In 
comparison  with  the  masterpieces  of  sacred  and  profane 
literature  spiritualistic  ebullitions  are  contemptible. 
The  ethical  standing  and  moral  status  of  the  whole 
business,  when  weighed  in  the  balance,  is  found  to  be 
sadly  wanting. 

We  have  seen  that  we  are  now  in  the  midst  of  a 
spiritistic  wave,  due  to  the  fact,  on  the  one  hand,  that 
it  has  been  thirty  years  or  more  since  we  have  had  such 
a  revival  of  spiritualism,  and  on  the  other,  to  the  monu¬ 
mental  loss  of  life  in  the  recent  World  War,  which  has 
forced  tens  of  thousands  of  bereaved  people  to  turn 
their  eyes  toward  the  world  beyond  the  grave  and  to 
long,  if  such  a  thing  is  possible,  to  communicate  with 
their  loved  ones  who  have  so  recently  and  so  suddenly 
passed  into  the  Great  Beyond. 

We  have  further  noted  that,  with  the  possible  excep¬ 
tion  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  no  real  scientists  today  are 
dyed-in-the-wool  spiritualists,  and  even  Sir  Oliver,  in 
his  book  Raymond ,  while  personally  and  sentimentally 
endorsing  the  thing,  seeks  as  it  were,  subconsciously,  to 


Conclusion 


211 


make  the  reservations  of  a  scientist  as  to  sponsoring 
the  thing  in  its  ultimate  analysis.  We  have  seen  that 
science  has  not  accepted,  and  does  not  accept,  or  en¬ 
dorse,  spiritualism. 


, 


Date  Due 


V 


